The Winds that Will be Howling at All Hours

The other day I went for a walk enjoying the chilly, sunny blue-ness, and the pink-tipped maple trees. Coming back, when I exited the shelter of the pines and hopped on the road that runs between the strips and the four-acre field, I was met with the usual blast of wind that makes me feel at home like practically nothing else. Though on that day the wind was particularly strong. I'm not good at gauging the speed of wind, but if there is any correlation to what the strength of the rushing air feels like when you have the windows down in the car at various speeds and the strength of actual wind when you are standing still, I'd say the wind was about 40mph. Maybe 50.

Whatever the speed was, it was the exhilarating, knock-you-off-your-feet kind. So I tried jumping in place a bit, and leaning into the wind with my arms out. It kept getting stronger and stronger, so it didn't take long for me to start running around in it like an air plane. Then I threw my arms straight over my head and twirled around in the middle of the road.

In between revolutions I noticed the car.

Oh dang.

It was just one of the neighbor's employees, and she has probably seen me do weirder things than perform some nature dance, but I'm sure it engrained in her mind that those Wilber's are odd people.

Party officially dampened, I moved to the side of the road to let her pass, waving as she went by....trying to act like people dancing in the middle of the road is a perfectly normal, everyday occurrence (which it would be if my imaginary world came to life).

Another aspect of my imaginary world is that I live on the coast, in a weather-beaten house on a cliff with the ocean in front and fields and pine trees in the back. That will come true, to a limited extent (like, the coastal part), for a whole week starting Saturday. The Hinterberger's (graciously, spectacularly) invited us to go with them on vacation for free, so tomorrow morning we are getting up before the sun to make the trip to Myrtle Beach, to a house just a few hundred feet from the ocean.

It is going to be fun.

First, it has been years (so many I really can't remember) since we have gone on a family vacation for a purpose other than business. Usually, vacation involves a stove delivery, or multiple meetings, or entrepreneurial scouting. This time, the purpose is just being with friends (my idea of the best vacation because being in a place you love becomes a million times better when you are with people you love....*insert I want to go to heaven sigh here*).

Second, it's the beach! Code for: sunshine! Building a sand castle and jumping some waves is great, but I'm particularly in love with beach towels and books and sunshine.

The only downer is that the "books" in the above will involve school. The vacation plans only went through a week ago, so I had no time to get ahead in school. The other downer is that there is no internet at the beach house, so doing college online should be interesting. Between coffee shops and the iPad's 3G, I should get through successfully enough, though. At least I will have math off. I may have mentioned it here before, but my math teacher and I have some serious communication problems. Meaning she doesn't answer my emails. Ever. One of the emails was, "when is the break scheduled for? It doesn't say in the syllabus or course calendar, and you haven't posted an announcement about it."

Silence.

Then, one week during school, I read the following announcement: "I hope you all enjoyed your spring break." Me: WHAT spring break? You never told me last week was spring break! I did math the whole way through!

So, needless to say, I'm a week ahead in math. It's all worked for good though, since I won't have to submit any assignments in that class for this upcoming week.

I do need to get the rest of my textbooks around though (and pretty much everything else since I don't pack until the last day), so au revoir!