Return from Vacation, and Sweet Tea
Man am I stuffed! We are back from vacation, got home at 1:30 a.m. Sunday morning, and I am still full from all of the awesome food we ate!
The crabbing and oyster hunting proved to be very profitable, and we all benefitted. Just as an example of the bounty we pulled from the ocean, please allow me to share with you the contents of our last meal on Friday night.
The menu was as follows: boiled Blue Crabs, baked fresh oysters with fresh imported parmesan and garlic, baked stuffed clams, fresh fried oysters, fresh fried jumbo gulf shrimp, french fries, and my special hush puppies, served with tartar sauce, homemade cocktail sauce with organic horseradish and hot sauce; all washed down with the children’s favorite sodas…root beer and Dr. Pepper.
Yep! That’s how I roll! Yo man…just keeping it real! Some people eat to live, Cajuns live to eat…and we know what’s up!
This past week was just what the doctor ordered; or rather what she would have prescribed for us if we’d had called her at all. But we did not and just self diagnosed ourselves a big heaping dose of Florida fun-in-the-sun.
We came, we saw, we blew it out as only we can, and we are now back. That was a little warning for all of you by the way; because there is nothing more dangerous than our family fresh off of vacation. Seriously, if you see the “marsh-mellow van” out and about in town, please, for your own sake, keep your distance…for your own good because there is no telling what we might do or say with as much fun and rest as we have had lately!
You would think that we would ease into everyday life now that we are back. Pllleeeaaassseee people, this is the Parr family we are talking about. You know, the ones that wherever we go people look at us funny and make comments like…“Man, I would hate to have their shampoo bill!” I don’t know if you realize this but there are eight of us, and we all have ponytails. Now that’s a lot of hair!
Well, today Cheryl could not wait to get back to the Thrift Store and sort through some stuff, in fact, she’s been gone now for about three hours. I went outside a few minutes ago and found Christian amassing a pile of lumber so as to “build something,” as he put it. No idea what he wants to build, he just knows that there is a pool of energy inside of him and it would seem that the only way to get rid of it is to build something.
By the way, I just looked outside, and the lumber pile has doubled in size…where in the world is he getting this stuff?
You can always tell how well the vacation is going, by how quickly Cheryl begins to devise little plans as to how we could move to the vacation area.
We love Monticello, well, the county now, but when the trip is good…and this last one was really good, Cheryl tries to come up with feasible plans for a massive exodus to the new favorite spot. I’m not kidding, she can get pretty creative with this stuff!
She begins to say things like…“wouldn’t it be cool to live at the beach?” Which builds to…“I wonder if that church has a pastor?” This quickly escalates to…“Let’s go to the Chamber of Commerce and tell them that they need a youth ministry here for the community, and all we need is a house!” To which I cleverly responded…“Yeah well food and clothing would help as well so don’t forget to ask them for that as well!” Cheryl was not amused; evidently I was supposed to take these suggestions a great deal more seriously than I was…My Bad!
I don’t know if it was the awesomeness of the trip, or maybe the unstable nature of our family having too much rest, but at some point in the week, we drove past a very run down building that was an ex restaurant bar/bowling alley/ brothel/restaurant/ bar/ homeless shelter/ slum rental/ bar/surf shack; and the owner had the audacity to put a for sale sign in front of it instead of a bulldozer.
Cheryl takes one look at the place and says…and this is a direct quote…“Look honey! That place is empty! We could do something with that!” It was at that moment I realized that we needed to get back home.
By the way, if you are a sweet tea fan, as I am, I need to give you some important information. There is a place here in Jasper County where a person can get one serious glass of sweet tea. Now, I’m not talking about your every day, run-of-the-meal, glass of sweet tea. I’m talking about liquid sugar with a hint of tea bag.
I swear people…in this stuff you can actually taste the leather gloves that the cane harvester was wearing on the day the cane was cut. In fact, judging from the taste, he was 5’7” tall, had brown hair, was wearing faded blue jeans and a cut off green t-shirt; oh yeah, and it was 4:15 in the afternoon.
It’s sweet tea! It’s instant diabetes on ice; and it is not for the faint of heart! If you like your sweet tea and you pancake syrup with the same consistency, then I need to introduce you to my friend Glenda…she will hook you up!
Jason, Father of Six