In which Ginny becomes a Duckling

This weekend I'm going to Duck Beach! I'm super excited to go again — this is a blog post I wrote after I first went two years ago and I never got the photos to work how I wanted and so I was too lazy to post it. I thought it would be fun to post it anyway. Here you go!

No, not in the classic fairytale sense, in the LDS-version of Spring Break sense! If you haven’t watched the documentary From Duck Beach to Eternity (don’t worry, I haven’t either) let me enlighten you:

Lots of seashells. And tide pools (not pictured).

Duck Beach is in Outer Banks, North Carolina. There are more beach houses then I have ever seen and they are practically mansions. During Memorial Day Weekend, single Mormons (members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) from the Eastern sea-board (and farther west!) flock to Duck Beach in droves, rent houses with their friends and many shenanigans commence. As a friend put it, "Duck beach: where you can spend time with your closest 500 Mormon friends."

From what I’ve heard, there’s always a New York house and that’s where a lot of the craziness goes down. My reports tell me that there was also a Tennessee house, a San Francisco house, a Utah house and multiple DC houses.

My friend Ashley decided to put a house together. And I kind of helped. Well, I was more like emotional support and helped with groceries.

Our house, aptly nicknamed “Procrastinator’s Paradise”, wasn’t open until Saturday but we were lucky enough to tack ourselves on to another house Friday night so we could set up and get all that pesky driving out of the way. Traffic was horrendous, but being at the beach was totally worth it! (Plus I’m from Arizona. I’m used to driving hours to get to the closest beach.) I wanted to check out the Atlantic ocean the moment we got there but it was late and started raining shortly after we arrived. The lightning was magnificent, but I knew my mom would kill me if I stayed outside for long. If I had a better camera (meaning, if I had an actual camera instead of my phone camera . . . .), I would post pictures. Just imagine monsoon-worthy lightning. It was lovely.

Duck Doughnuts!
One of our friends brought them Saturday morning.
They're a delicious tradition (or so I'm told).

I went to the beach first thing in the morning. I think that the beach is the most therapeutic place in the world. If I went once a month, I’m sure I’d be a lot saner than I am, haha. (Or less stressed? I don’t think I’m *actually* crazy. Just for the record.)

Differences I saw between the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean:

Atlantic Ocean!

So, this wasn’t my first time in the Atlantic. Last summer, I got to dip my toes from Bath’s rocky shore, so the Atlantic from sandy Whalehead Beach was different in that regard. I’ve heard the Atlantic is warmer than the Pacific. Maybe it’s just early in the season, but they seem to be the same temperature to me. That didn’t stop me from going in, of course! Being in the waves is one of my favorite things, even if it got a little rough Monday.

There seemed to be more wildlife. The beach was full of little holes where crabs live. In the morning, the beach was covered with little crab tracks from their scurrying.

Home sweet home!

The birds were my favorite. They would stay along the tide to eat something, I’m guessing, although I never saw what it was. They would run around on their little stick legs and then, when the wave was too big for them, they would all fly away, glide for a second, and then find a new spot where the tide was less intense.

Not everything was alive, though. Friday night’s storm brought a dead form of ray to the beach.

The next day, he was gone. The sea giveith and the sea taketh away.

Cheerwine counts as wine, right?

A lot of Saturday was spent taking care of house business. This was perfect because I am a pale who sunburns after three minutes in the sun. Ashley and I went to Food Lion, which is a grocery store. We were able to pick up this North Carolina exclusive soda called Cheerwine. Apparently it’s a big deal (Ashley was very adamant that we buy some.) Honestly, it tasted like cream soda to me. Others thought it tasted like cherry cream soda. Either way, it was good, especially as a creamsicle.

Saturday night, the Utah house got a sound permit for a dance party on the beach. It was, without a doubt, the most fun I’ve ever had at a dance. I don’t know if it was because it was under the stars, or because it was so dark no one could see my horrible dance moves, or if it was because it was on the beach and so everyone was uncoordinated and stumbling, but it was a blast! I laughed so hard. It was great! Only low point: they played Blurred Lines. I don’t know how anyone can listen to that song in good conscience, but that’s a rant for another time. [NOTE: When I first wrote this post, Weird Al's parody "Word Crimes" hadn't come out yet. I submit that it's much better song and now you can like the song and learn a thing or two about grammar.]

The other people from our house may have wimped out, but we kept dancing!

Go Seahawks! Amen!

Sunday we drove to Kitty Hawk for church in a junior high school! Apparently, the local branch rents out the junior high during Memorial Day weekend because there are so many young single LDS members for church that week.

The lost colony of Roanoke was nearby so I convinced everyone in my car that we HAD to go there.

Site of a Pre-Colonial alien abduction?!

Cliff notes version for those of you who snoozed through American history: once upon a time, England sent men, women and children to the new world. They set up a colony in Roanoke. After a while, they ran out of supplies and sent the governor, John White, back to England to help them out. They decided on a sign, a Maltese cross, as a signal for danger. It took White a longer time than he expected to get back to the colony. By the time he arrived, the colony was deserted, there wasn’t a sign of anyone, including his daughter and granddaughter, Virginia Dare, the first English child to be born in America. The only thing that was left behind was two words carved into a tree and a post: “Cro” and “Croatoan.” White had to leave before conducting extensive searches because of a storm and the doomed colonists were never heard from again. Makes you grateful for modern technology, huh? I’m glad we don’t have to mess around with carving trees anymore.

Smile, something bad happened here!

Once we were home, it was mostly about relaxation. A lot of our housemates went down to the beach and I told a couple of fortunes (although maybe one shouldn’t divine on the Sabbath . . .)

One of the fortune-seekers drew my caricature as payment.

Sunrise . . .

Sunset (from the previous day.)

Monday was a beach day. I woke up early to see the sunrise (quite a feat for me!) It was beautiful to see the sun kiss the ocean good morning.

Often I prefer sunsets (I’m not an early riser and sunrises are almost always orange. What’s up with that?) but I was glad to see the peaceful tide. The beach was almost entirely devoid of human footprints, but, in a couple of hours, the beach was a social scene! There were so many characters, including five guys in short, matching swim trunks. Couples were getting together and vying for attention which made people watching a glorious pastime.

I spent the whole day at the beach and then we drove home.

Before I sign off, I know you’re all dying to know: did I find romance at Duck Beach, a place famous for stormy make-outs (and, well, other things)?! Sorry kids, the only romance I internalized was the tragedy of Hazel and Augustus in The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. I cried salty tears by the salty waves. Oh, and the much-sadder-then-I-was-expecting untimely love of Helen Loomis and Bill Forrester in Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. Next beach trip I am taking fluffier beach reads; I need some escapism every now and again! Recommendations are always appreciated! (Unless I get a little more adventuresome and find myself a beach fling. But that seems like a lot more work and a little more awkward!) And I hope the beach blessed some of my friends in their blossoming Duck love. Only time will tell!

Wrapping Through Life + Memories of School Fundraisers

Did you ever have to sell anything for school? 

It was cool because it was double sided.

One year at Dilworth Elementary, we sold Sally Foster wrapping paper (which, I just found out via Google, has been discontinued). The PTA did a little fashion show demonstrating how awesome wrapping paper was (I'm not kidding about this. There were full wrapping paper outfits.) and I wanted SO BADLY to get something cool out of the prize magazine. 

I had to share all of my relatives with my sister and all the other neighborhood kids got to the old people on my street first, so Kendle and I both had only enough points to get little clackers, which my mom absconded because she was better at playing with it than we were. She made so much noise and Kendle and I hated it — talk about a role reversal. (Woah. I didn't know that life event needed to be aired.)

If my wrapping paper experience had been a little different, this might have happened to me:

"Would you like to buy some wrapping paper, ma'am?" I launched into my sales pitch once the door creaked open.

"Let's have a look — come inside for a cookie?" She warbled.

Invited inside? That prize for selling the most for my school fundraiser was in the bag!

"Hmmm, these are a little pricey." She perused the pages as I munched away. "I can't buy today. I have to go . . . iron . . . my cat."

As she closed the magazine, my eye caught her cupboards and a cat looked back at me. And another and another.

"I better go." I hightailed it out. Those prizes weren't so great anyway.

This short story is a part of the illustrious Flash Fiction Friday. Read the other lovely stories, spun off the dialogue prompt: "I have to go . . . iron . . . my cat." at the links below!

Brianne Dosch * Tiffany Jones * Kat!e Larson * Quinlyn Shaughnessy * Lady Violet

(Belated) Flash Fiction Friday: Two for the price of one!

Sometimes I get too distracted with family and have a hard time asking someone if I can borrow their computer to type up one hundred word stories. And word count is unwieldy on a cellphone. 

Okay, enough excuses! Here are my two offerings for Flash Fiction Friday!

Playtime

It may be strange, but for years, my only friend was mute. She never spoke, never made a sound, but the look in her eyes told me exactly what was about to happen.

When we played in my bedroom, I would whisper things to her as she stared out the window, unseeing. The room held no laughter.

But, as I whispered to her, images would whir across her glass eyes fringed with dark lashes. A burning forest. A missing child. A raging storm.

I would finger her glossy curls, the silence almost overwhelming.

In ways it was a lonely childhood.

* * *

Collector

Photo credit: blog.eversnapapp.com

“I promise I didn’t sell it, I just lost it and I heard you could find it,” he said.

“I know, that’s why I find them,” the girl with the copper hair replied. “I’ll get it for you.”

It was in the blue jar, the one to the left that smelled like summer and felt like sea breeze.

She was always surprised by the disconnect between human and soul. This lovely specimen belonged to a man trying so hard to pretend like he couldn’t feel the discomfort of its absence, but his bodies unwitting cries to his soul were nearly the loudest she had heard.

“Here you go.” She brought it to him, her hands gently cupped around it. “Gingers don’t steal souls, we just collect them.”

These short stories are a part of the illustrious Flash Fiction Friday. Read the other lovely stories, spun off the prompt:  "She never spoke, never made a sound, but the look in her eyes told me exactly what was about to happen." and "It was the blue jar . . ." at the links below!

Brianne Dosch * Kat!e Larson * Quinlyn Shaughnessy * Lady Violet

RIP Edwina

Thanksgiving is a massive affair for my family. Last year, the count was 55 people and 36 pies, and that wasn’t even everyone.

It’s always been a time of pie and family -- a sort of reunion for the Webb sisters, my grandma and my great-aunt. They reunite with as many of their children and grandchildren that can make it, and we eat and talk and talk and eat. After pie, we sing Christmas songs in SATB parts as my grandma plays the piano.

Every Thanksgiving is lovely, but some are more memorable than others, like the year Sunny the Alston’s dog ate all of the pies they were bringing. But some years get passed down as legends; none more so than the year of Edwina.

Not Edwina. Or the national bird of the U.S.A.

First, it must be said, don’t ever name something you plan on eating. When you name an animal, it turns that livestock into a pet.

My family learned this the hard way when, one Thanksgiving, they were gifted a turkey and my oldest uncle christened it “Edwina.”

Edwina lived in our backyard and, according to my grandma, “had the prettiest little gobble.”

The morning came, the Arizona sun shining on Edwina, who glimpsed Teapot Mountain from our backyard for the last time.

My strongest uncle went to her side, machete in hand and began hacking. And hacking and hacking and hacking.

We blame the dull machete. But next time you read Alma 17, keep in mind how remarkable it is that Ammon is able to cut off as many arms as he does. Because if it’s hard to chop off the head of a turkey, I can’t imagine how hard it is to get through an entire human arm.

I think it’s safe to say the whole family was a little traumatized, but my pragmatic grandma pressed on, roasting her for the feast as was intended.

There she was, laid out on the faded turkey-print platter that had seen many a Thanksgiving, her plump flesh golden brown and (presumably) delicious.

My aunts and uncles and their cousins stared at Edwina, some of the eyes suspiciously shiny. They stared at the gravy my grandma had made from the drippings.

“I can’t eat it!” One of the Alston cousins proclaimed. “It’s Edwina juice!”

“Are you going to let her life be in vain?” My uncle said. “Edwina gave her life to us and we need to be thankful.”

With that, some of the family dug in, but others abstained. They had, after all, loved the little turkey with a pretty gobble.

We haven’t raised a family turkey since, but, as I ladle gravy over my potatoes each year, I can’t help but think of it as “Edwina juice.”

Summer reading, had me a blast!

I always feel like Labor Day weekend is the death toll for summer, but it’s not the Autumnal Equinox yet! So, even though I posted this at the beginning of summer, it's not too late!

For the first time in a long time, I made a reading list. A summer reading list. Normally, I don’t do such things because I feel like reading lists ate confining: they keep you from actually reading what you want to read and I get stressed out if I’m not reading all the books fast enough, and then, when I start reading books that aren't on my reading list (I'm looking at you, all the John Green novels and Mercy Thompson books), I feel like I'm cheating. However, I decided to put my personal issues aside and give reading lists another shot. 

I was inspired by a former teacher of mine, Todd Petersen, who posted his summer reading list. I followed his “assignment” and looked up the actual class rubric (I'm either a total nerd or a creeper!) to try to gain insight into the list parameters. There were three categories and I picked five for each: books I WANT, SHOULD and HAVE to read. I solicited advice from Facebook, and decided that “want” books were solely for pleasure, “should” books were those I felt would benefit me in some way (either socially or for personal writing) and “have” books were books I own that I haven’t read yet (my ten-year-old self would be ashamed that such a category could exist).

These are the books I chose (plus the book of Isaiah; turns out Good Reads won’t let me add just one book from the Old Testament. How rude of them.)

Ginny's bookshelf: summer-2014

Cress

by Marissa Meyer

This has turned into a series I want to own! My inner feminist loves how well ALL the characters are developed. (But I especially love how many women characters there are and how they all have different dreams, fears, talents, personalit...

tagged: summer-2014

Frankenstein

by Mary Shelley

tagged: summer-2014

To the Lighthouse

by Virginia Woolf

tagged: summer-2014

All the President's Men

by Carl Bernstein

tagged: summer-2014

The Accursed

by Joyce Carol Oates

tagged: summer-2014

Lord of the Flies

by William Golding

tagged: summer-2014

Hollow City

by Ransom Riggs

I love Riggs descriptive language! (Especially when he talks about love. Man, some of those analogies . . . .) And the pictures are still so fun, even though at times they seemed a little forced in this installment. I need to read it aga...

tagged: summer-2014

The Hollow City

by Dan Wells

Ugh. How to feel? Scary book, which was kind of fun -- I had this sense of dread the whole time. I mean, I'm not sure I enjoyed it, but I kind of did. I like how Wells takes unconventional protagonists and runs with it. I also like the...

tagged: summer-2014

The Way of Kings

by Brandon Sanderson

The last 200 pages were exhilarating! So why didn't I rate this higher? Because it took 1,000 pages to get there! I understand this is a part of Sanderson's fantasy epic so a lot of it was setting up the rest of series, but the jury's st...

tagged: summer-2014

Life After Life

by Kate Atkinson

A fresh take on already-sung theme -- kind of a Groundhog Day meets reincarnation, but all within a historical fiction novel. Sometimes I get fixated on the land of "what-ifs," so the idea that so much can hang on one moment resonated wi...

tagged: summer-2014

Dandelion Wine

by Ray Bradbury

Magically melancholy, Dandelion Wine paints a nostalgic picture that is the embodiment of summers of yore. (And the second book one read in a row where children are constantly philosophical. Which is a little bit unbelievable.) Lovely pr...

tagged: summer-2014

North to the Orient

by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

tagged: summer-2014

The Handmaid's Tale

by Margaret Atwood

tagged: summer-2014

Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories

by Roald Dahl

tagged: summer-2014

You’ll notice I haven’t read them all (the ones with reviews are ones I've read), but here’s what I’ve learned so far:

1. I finished all the books in the “want” category first. So maybe I need to change how I look at books I “have” to read so I can actually finish them.

2. Asking for suggestions was fun and something I need to do more often! It can be a lot of fun to read a genre that isn't my go-to.

3. Having a reading list made me think about what I was reading and why I was reading it. Was what I had expected to get from the book what I actually took away? Was I making the most of the book I was cheating on my reading list with? (I actually ditched a book because it wasn't exciting enough and didn't justify the guilt I was feeling for not reading from my list.) 

4. I read borrowed or library books faster than ones I actually own.

5. Some books are better than others for certain situations. Lord of the Flies may not be the best book for your flight. And don't be surprised if people look at you strangely for tearing up while reading Dandelion Wine at the beach.

6. I still have a hard time with reading lists. (I would say "hate," but that's such a strong word.) I still feel like they make reading an assignment when it should be a joy. But I noticed how having a reading list expanded my reading horizons. So, maybe I'll keep doing a reading list. I'll just keep it a little more informal and account for my random library picks and obsessive author-binges.

Okay! I've got a month left! Better run off and actually finish To the Lighthouse! And let me know what I should read next as I procrastinate my reading list :D