Beach BBQ and sunset

Today, we return home from the beach, so I thought I'd end the entries from this trip with two sets of images that made me happy.

One group involves a barbecue joint that appears only three days a week and operates out of a trailer. We first noticed it from this sign on the side of the road.


A smaller sign made stated that the restaurant operated only on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays--an odd schedule, even by beach standards. When we checked out the building next to the sign, we found only an empty building--but it wasn't one of those three days.

So on Wednesday, we returned and found this beauty.


You have to love a barbecue restaurant on wheels.

A conversation with the owners and a closer inspection of this cooker


revealed an awesome fact: they cook only with wood.

The man doing the cooking said he'd been doing it for thirty years and never used anything but wood. He clearly loved what he was doing. Check out the words on the top of their menu:


Even though we had just eaten lunch, we bought a couple of delicious pounds of pork 'que to go.

The other set of pictures are from the house as we were returning from dinner the other night. The sunset was lovely.


So was the view of the ocean from the balcony. Note the cone standing guard over the house.


I already can't wait to go back next summer.

Conetasm--and a shot from dusk

You've asked for more of the cone, and I am listening. Or were those voices in my head?

It doesn't matter. More cone shots are now yours. Enjoy.

The cone alone.


My nephew, Chase, and the cone.


Sarah and the cone.


Scott and the cone.


Sarah's friend, Emily, and the cone.


Kyle and the cone.


Sarah's friend, Brian, and the cone.


Brian, who was as enthusiastic about the cone as I was, dancing while in the con suit.


And, finally, apropos of nothing, the view we enjoyed while waiting the other night for a table at the restaurant that sits almost under the bridge that connects the island to the mainland.


I do love this place.

It. Is. Mine.

Frequent readers may remember this post about me dancing as the cone man. If you missed that entry, check it out before proceeding; I'll wait.

Back? Good.

When we hit the beach this year, we were dismayed to learn that the ice cream shop that had housed the giant cone had closed. Fortunately, a while later we learned that a different shop had purchased the cone and had it standing in the corner, face to the wall, unwilling to display it proudly.

We have history with this cone. I've danced in it a couple of times. I've hugged my kids, who were much younger then, while wearing it. We've seen it sitting in the corner of beach ice cream shops for quite a few years. Yet here it stood, relegated to a place of shame.

So, I did the only logical thing.

I bought it.

After a short negotiating session, during which the current owner's major concern was what I was planning to do with it (did she worry I would somehow use my cone for nefarious purposes? exactly what might those be? the mind boggles), and with the quick exchange of a hundred, the cone was mine. It wouldn't fit in my car, so after dinner we stopped by the ice cream shop and put the very large cone in the back of the van.

Here I am, standing pool-side with it.


For those who want a closer look at its creepy face, I offer this alternate pic.


I'd post pictures of others with it, but I'd have to get their permissions, so for now, this is all the cone-pix you get.

Don't you wish you had a giant cone, too?

You can deny it, but you know you do.

Perhaps the oddest double bill ever

Monday night, as is our beach custom, we watched two movies. The pairings are frequently unusual, but this particular duo stood out for its sheer strangeness.

Here's the first film we chose.



The second was rather different.



Oh, yes: we went there.

Waffle dog night

Once, at a craft show far, far away (well, in Virginia), Jennie, Bonnie, and Jain ate waffle dogs and brought home tales of their tasty goodness.

We knew then that we, too, must eat of the mighty waffle dog.

In the fullness of time, Jennie found a mini-waffle-dog maker, purchased it, and carried it to this very beach house.

The other night, we put it to use.

We started by assembling all the left-overs in the house and a bunch of new stuff we purchased explicitly to go into waffles. Doesn't this look like a yummy assemblage of waffle-stuffings-to-be?


As it turned out, a star of the waffle show was this deservedly famous bit of quivering pink meatness.


Yes, that is Spam. Kyle and I agreed that the spam-and-cheese waffle, not to mention the enhanced spam, cheese, and bacon variation, was a concoction of extreme deliciousness.

I opted to begin with a nutritional combination of bacon cheeseburger and spam-and-cheese waffle. Don't you wish you had this plate?


There's already talk of a second waffle night!

Inception

Warning: spoilers below.

Let me start with the bottom line: I loved all but the last few seconds of this movie. In that final, troubling close-up, writer and director Christopher Nolan tried to play the ending both ways, and that was a huge, stupid mistake. Cobb, DiCaprio's character, had won, and he deserved an unequivocal victory.

Despite that misstep, however, the movie was a joy. Visually, it was amazing, with more cool scenes and gorgeous eye candy than even the trailers had led us to believe were coming. More importantly, though, it was intelligent, complex, and had enough heart that we cared about all the main characters, particularly Cobb. The dream mechanics turned a bit fuzzy at a few points, but for the most part the movie was also internally consistent, a characteristic almost all big-budget films today lack.

Time and again, movie after movie, I wonder why Hollywood won't learn that a bigger investment in good writing, in true and smart and consistent stories, would lead to much better films.

Or maybe Hollywood knows something I don't want to accept: that enough special effects will draw big box office and let you save on story.

Still, how much more would great stories cost? Writing has to be the cheapest part of any movie.

Ah, well. At least in Inception we have a complete package, and for that I am grateful.

Don't miss this one.

When you stop

at a roadside, weekend-only, outdoor market, it's about a hundred degrees and the air is so thick with water that you can almost drink it, you have over an hour before the movie you're about to watch, and you see this sign


what do you do?

You order the tiger blood shaved iced, of course--at least, that's what you do if you're Kyle.

The rest of us just egged him on.

For the curious, here's the creation itself.


We asked the purveyor of these fine ices what this flavor was. His response: "Fruit punch." You have to give him marketing points; after all, if you're a kid--clearly the target audience--would you rather drink fruit punch or tiger blood?

Tiger blood, you bet.

Kyle confirmed that it indeed tasted like fruit punch.

None of us braved the warhead topping.