Tour Diary -38 – Save a turtle….see what you get!! – Can we ban the word ‘like’ from our children’s vocabulary? – TV sabotage – Myrtle Beachpeoplewatching – and the Joneses get conned by airlines – again!!

Tour Diary -38 – Save a turtle….see what you get!! – Can we ban the word ‘like’ from our children’s vocabulary? – TV sabotage – Myrtle Beachpeoplewatching – and the Joneses get conned by airlines – again!!

Poor Steve. 

I have the long-distance eyes of a hawk but the short distance eyes of a myopic Lemur, one who is wearing very dark glasses.

I am always on the look-out for critters.. (see how acclimatized I am to the American vernacular)  both in amongst the trees but also on the road. 

I can see them a mile away.

I suddenly yelled to Steve.. ‘Stop, Stop, Stop.’ As he screeched to a halt he could then see the big Terrapin crossing the road.  I had thought it was a critter, which had already been hit by a car and was on its back struggling.  Saint Francis jumped out, picked it up by the sides of its shell and moved towards the grass with it.  As he did so, the turtle, obviously distressed at suddenly finding itself flying, starting frantically waving its little legs and then ‘peed’ backwards all over Steve’s legs and his sandals.  Steve carried on and placed it carefully on the grass verge so I thought maybe he had not seen the stream of water and maybe it hadn’t actually gone over him but between his legs.  But as he turned back to the car.. growling and muttering to himself with a face like thunder instead of a face which said… “What a clever little boy I am!” .. I thought.. ”Oh no. He got the full deluge” 

A car slowly going past gave us a thumbs up for saving the little critter and I think Steve would have loved to have growled, but instead gave a very lopsided smile to the car occupants, which did not reach his eyes AT ALL! and then got back our car to find me total hysterical with laughter.  He loves those Sandals and he likes to get respect and thanks from the animals for his rescuing, not get peed on.  I still keep chuckling and Steve has just said.. “Imagine if you were that turtle, minding your own business and then out of no-where you are abducted up into the air, by ‘Beings’ unseen and you are so frightened that you pee yourself and then when you come to.. and look around you are in a completely different place with some missing time… Huh… now he knows what it is like for me!!. Serves him right for p…..g all over me”  Still on this thread obviously, as he continued… “Yes, then imagine that you reach your mates or your wife and tell her the story and she just laughs and says what have you been eating with your lettuce leaves?!” I had to leave the room as I still couldn’t stop laughing and he was so unimpressed with my lack of understanding of the incredible slight to his dignity.

He can now see the funny side, but I just hope that when his sandals dry out, that there is no remnant of smell or stain or I will never hear the last of it. 

He tried to rescue a huge bug yesterday, which was in no danger at all just minding its own business on a wall, but as Steve tried to pick it up it flew away with its huge wingspan and Steve nearly fell over backwards.  I think his foray into the world of animals and insects borne out of years of living with me and my obsession with all living creatures… is still very tenuous.

He was very impressed with me spotting my most favourite insect of all time on a bench on a veranda of one of the spectacular houses.  It was a lime green Preying Mantis.. I adore them and this one was only about a half inch long… Imagine how small the little bugs have to be that it catches in its pincers!  When they pounce they are just so incredibly fast….

And if you believe in previous lives.. for example that we have had lives - lived as an insect (as the Buddhists do)…always decide to come here as a female Mantis as the males become dinner once they have performed their conjugal duties.  My young brother adored them and kept a few as pets but it was so hard to find live insects for them in Lower Edmonton!!  I remember with such fondness his attempts to feed it.  He bought a box of maggots at the fish shop and put them in the wardrobe to hatch, but forgot about them.  Only the incredible loud buzzing alerted him to the fact that dozens of huge massive Bluebottles were clamouring to get out of the box, having hatched.  Yukk!!  He put them in with the Mantis who must have thought it was Christmas and had its head swimming with all these flies buzzing around it…  They were soon gone…

I just went to have a haircut at the Salon that  Mary goes to and had a wonderful half hour immersed in the incredibly strong accent of the South Carolinas.  I really liked it there and not just because my stylist  told me I had wonderful skin and amazingly beautiful haaaeeeerrrr.. a bit alarming for me though, as I wondered about the veracity of her eyesight! ( I didn’t want to come out with a Mohican)  Everyone in the hairdressers knew each other and the topics of conversations were for all to share in not just between each Stylist and her client.  Consequently I am now aware that last night on the programme ‘Americas Got Talent’ one of the Contestants was a male pole dancer complete with ‘Booty’ shorts on.. (I too had to ask for an explanation, for English readers I will leave it to your imagination) ..an incredibly tight spandex body strip which was about 2 “ wide all over and a pair of really high stilettos.  Apparently this amazing vision that I had conjured up in my imagination was totally correct because the Stylist then proceeded to give us a demonstration of how he had moved on that pole.  All I can say is that she could have auditioned as well and would certainly stand a chance of going through, which is what the panel did for this young would-be sex performer…they put him through. 

Stilettos and booty….  Only in America…

My Stylist then said to me..”mizzmurray izz secha dull iznnn she?”  I’m afraid I had to ask her to repeat it 3 times before I finally got it and I think our Sat Nav sisters who live in our GPS have real competition now.

(Translation Miss Mary is such a doll isn’t she?)

More titles on billboards.

These two I have no idea what they are for:-

Money Man Pawn

In the first I can only surmise that you can pawn things for money and maybe if desperate, either buy a man or put yours in until you can afford to redeem him?

I dig the ………..(Picture of  a pigs face)

Could be food, a restaurant or anything really – not explained.  Could just be for people like Steve and I who love little Piggly Wigglys..

Crabby Jacks

Seafood restaurant whose title so put me off I would never go in there.

And

Bottoms up – A Gentleman’s club

I think they utilised a young Einstein to come up with a name for that one up..

There are some things that really disturb me as I go around America.  The most prominent is the appalling misuse of the word “like” by the young generation.  In one attempt to say a sentence the other day, one young girl used “like” 28 times.  I couldn’t bear the fact that I was counting but once I started I couldn’t stop.

It drives us crazy and often we have to move seats or just move train carriages in NYC as it is so grating on the nerves.  They have no idea at all that they are putting in this word every third word or so.  I so hope that this style of talking does not catch on in a huge way in England.  We already have our own terrible distortion of language which is an amalgam of Gangland speak and Indian idiom, which often makes it hard to understand the young.

Her sentence went like this…”it was like…well I.. like.. was thinking.. like.. if she could like.. see.. like what I …like ..was .. like.. going to .. like.. have to do … like… if.. like.. she wanted .. me …like.. to ….

O.M.G!  I just want to take around a tape recorder and make them have to listen to themselves, but I doubt if they would be aware of what they are doing as every single one is doing it to each other.  In England we seem to have gone in and thankfully out again, of the awful Australian way of speaking where every sentence is treated as a question? Do you know what I mean???? 

I also think that not many T.V presenters now use the phrase.. er…or ermmm.. to make a space to think in… although this was so popular as well, many years ago. 

My thought is (there I go thinking again) that as everything is so fast paced now and the TV programmes especially, change the image every few seconds for young viewers and for older viewers only 4–5 minutes of a programme runs before 4 minutes of incredibly loud and fast-paced adverts then bombard the viewer.  Perhaps this is causing an inability to be able to continue a thread of thought and consequently the young have to use ‘like’ every second or so, in order to be able to get through a sentence?  What do you think?. 

I don’t think they are able to hold onto a continual energy thread of conversation.  It’s such a shame….  TV, as already stated, is just beyond me now and I won’t watch anything in America unless it’s the Turner Classic Movies, with no adverts.

However in every single public place you go in every wall is covered with TV’s.  In every Hotel lobby and dining hall, bar.. shop and even in the MacDonald’s now it is TV  TV  TV..

In the bar of one restaurant we were in, there were 8 plasma screen TV’s screens on the wall all showing different programmes.

I feel it is an insidious ploy to stop people from talking with each other and make conversations and so consequently, like me, work out how to save the world.  On top of the TV screen/abuse is also the feeling that you cannot eat anywhere now without both TV’s plus…. Music/abuse.  At the last airport we were in, spending a jolly little day there…  as we had a cup of coffee, the bar was lined with 3 TV’s all tuned to different programmes.. However, Muzac was also  blaring out overall throughout the airport and then the coffee bar had its own separate music.  So just to try to have a quiet drink meant we were bombarded by 5 separate media outpourings!.. 

Why is it not considered O.K. if we just sit in the place with no external noise?

Is the gentle buzz of good conversations not possible any more?  

Who decided that we all need to be bombarded in this way? 

In Linville Falls we went outside to eat as it was so noisy inside we couldn’t hear each other talk, but when we got outside the music was blasting out on speakers out there too.  Again we could not hear each other.  It took 3 of us, 5 separate attempts to finally get them to turn the music down so that we could eventually hear each other.

In Charleston we went into a very genteel bar with a lovely waitress with very laid-back energy.  She had on the plasma screen TV but it was tuned to the old movies and she had the subtitles on with the sound off.  So I did not notice it when we first went in.  She could still watch it if necessary and it did not interfere with us.  So is the purpose of these TV’s to keep the waiting staff happy and not bored?  It is a real mystery and it is so obvious when you only visit every couple of years or so, the degeneration which keeps happening.. Language and leisure space..  It’s time to fight back…

I think this is one of those things where we have to keep saying.. “I want to be here in your bar, restaurant, shop or whatever it is.. but I can only stay if you allow me the opportunity to talk with my companions and not have to shout over a TV set, which no-one appears to be watching or this loud music.  Can you turn it off or shall I leave?”

 I am very sad to report that my two most favourite eating places in England – one an Indian Restaurant that I have been going to for 20 years and the other one a fabulous Home-Cooking restaurant have both now succumbed to this fashion.  The Indian restaurant upgraded its décor recently and to our despair put a huge plasma screen  TV up and now bombards its customers with Bollywood movies!!.  I am the only person I know  - probably in the Universe - who is not Indian but who loooovvveeesss Bollywood. I love, love, love them.  So vibrant, happy, colourful, artistic but incredibly fast and furious.  Not the kind of thing you want to be catching out of the corner of your eye as you eat your wonderful Chicken Tikka Masala.  The other restaurant insists on playing very loud Tamala Motown and past Pop hits at a very high decibel.  Who can sit still and talk when Martha Reeves is asking you to Dance in the Streets with her?

Again we ask if they can turn it down but are told no or told they will and nothing happens…

I would hate to give up going to these restaurants but I long ago gave up going shopping in Oxford Street in London as the music was always so incredibly loud so I would stagger out of the shops with my eardrums at bursting point and no idea whatsoever of what I had gone in to look at!

On the plus side we have discovered that if Steve flings some ‘energy’ at the T.V screen it goes blank!!  YEESSSS!!  He did it 6 times in a row yesterday so I think that if he refines this skill we should be able to go out and not be bothered by TV’s.  He is obviously using his amazing Reiki energy, which he always utilised before, when our Media system at home plays up or a film won’t play properly.  He just waves his hand over it or points at it and it works again but this is a new aspect to it, making TV screen go blank or turn off…

Talk about natural Yin and Yang. 

I walk in or near things and the electrics break down, he walks in and waves his hand and they start up again.  I have to say I would rather have his power than mine unless I want to take up a new career as a saboteur behind enemy lines…

So I’m sad to see/hear the language mangling and sad to see/hear the destruction of the “night out space” We popped on down to the beach today to walk and had the radio on for the first time, usually we listen to a CD and the same thing happens on the radio show.  One track and then we timed it and it was 4 – 5 minutes of frantic shouting adverts.  This would mean probably only about 6 or 7 tracks playing in an hour.  However, when we turned the volume back up after 5 minutes to hear the track we both said.. “Are they playing the same tune each time?”  Every track sounded the same!  What is going on?!!

Anyway we had a lovely walk along the incredible Myrtle Beach, which is over 30 miles long I’m told and did some people watching.  A lovely young man with long hair and a surfboard under his arm was striding along with an incredible gait.  He was slender but he was walking how people do when they are enormously overweight.  We watched in delight and he kept it up all along the beach but every now and again he kicked up his heels and clicked them together!!  Wonderful, he was obviously in such a happy space.  He was gone for about 15 minutes and then we saw him coming back.. still swinging ‘his Booty’ and clicking his heels  - I just love the entertainment on the beach.  We usually stay actually on Myrtle Beach in the lovely Mary’s Condo but it was rented out this time.  It was from this Condo that Steve saw the UFO’s out of the window and had to ask them to repeat their experience as I had missed it.. (It’s in the book)

It was also from here that he ran down to try to catch up with the dolphins swimming by.  I don’t know what gave me more pleasure, watching dolphins going past our balcony or see Steve frantically waving at them to wait for him to catch up.  (Only if you can swim as fast as us Big-Boy!)

We also love to watch the surf-kiters who do the most amazing acrobats and somersaults in the air.  I am always a bit apprehensive that they will take off with the wind and not come back down to sea…

But the hot weather is relentless and as I still have great difficulty dealing with it, so we are cutting our time short here and moving on up to the North East and the last part of this tour.  We still have 5 weeks to go and at least 5 more talks to do, but I shall be very sad to have to leave and go home….

Next Stop Boston and New Hampshire and the highlight of the tour.. Rhode Island and ‘The Gathering’ and NYC ..…

Our suitcases are still doing their own thing.  This time it is making us pay the same price as our own plane tickets for every one of them.  I think it is because Steve kept ‘dissing’ mine and she is getting revenge..

The airline is charging us for every bag we put on and then surcharge for over 40lbs.  We have packed them and weighed them at the normal 50 lb weight and we are transporting 2 boxes of books also.  I cannot tell you the unusual words, which emanated from the bedroom last night as Steve dealt with the on-line case booking.  He should have read the small print on the luggage spec. first, instead of being impressed with cheap fares.  A dear lesson learned.  Avoid Spirit Airlines like the plague.  Everyone should avoid them and write to them telling them why, as I intend to do and say what crooks they are, then they will have to look again at their policies.

So $600.00 to just go up the coast!!  Wow…  At least we can go direct and not spend the interim in Texas or some other place to catch the next flight.  I hope my little suitcase appreciates how much I value her as I am continuing on with her.  Patched up and all.  She is looking pretty wild and wonderful as we found some amazing duct tape to patch her up with. 

Steve wanted to throw her away, but I know he was hoping he could do so with all my clothes in it to save some weight.  But we held out the two of us.. suitcase and me  ....oh and my clothes too…

Lots of love

Annie

xx