Winter Vacation 04': The Beach

I got back from my Winter Beach Vacation on Sunday. My intention of having a good time was accomplished amid some minor complications.

Let me summarize:

Day 1: Thursday

Upon arriving we found our condominium to be very sufficient, however the view really sucked. I mean we had a great view of the outside pool, but the view of the ocean really stunk. Our condominium was three bedrooms with another sofa bed. From the onset, there was some conflict about who would get the master bed room. Another problem was that we had no food for breakfast, so we were invited to a nice breakfast at one of my friend’s parents condos. It was pretty nice. Nothing like free food.

Day 2: Friday

Friday was the most hected because me and the boys had to go grocery shopping. That was no easy task. (My mom makes it look so easy.) Our spending budget was 70.00 and I wanted to make sure that budget level was not exceeded. Sure I’m cheap, but I would label myself economical. It turns out that we didn’t in fact exceed our culinary item budgets by six dollars. I guess that was my fault when I got two things of ice cream. In our grocery we decided to have pizza on Friday night for dinner. For Saturday, we would have steamed green beans, glazed ham, mash potatoes, and macaroni/cheese. The interesting thing about the pizza was that it was homemade and my friends who made it did an excellent job. It beats having greasy and artery clogging pizza from Pizza Hut.

Day 3: Saturday

Saturday would be the most interesting and challenging day. I had invited some guest to come to dinner. So that would require my friends and I morph into the Dinner Party Hosts. But before that could happen. I made it my mission to sleep in because I didn’t get much sleep the night before. When I’m on vacation, I never really do. Anyway, when I was sleeping, my friends thought it would be cool if they got this statue that came with the condo and a craft of a crab and put in bed with me sleeping. Then, they got a camera and took an embarrassing picture. A picture I’m sure they will use to blackmail me into something. After waking up finally, everyone went into action. My main job was the “Glazer”, putting the sweet glaze on the ham, while everyone had the important and more difficult tasks of cooking, baking, etc.

Dinner came together like planned and our guests really enjoyed it. They really enjoyed my glaze, which was a combination of apple juice and brown sugar. Sounds nasty. I think not. Everyone loved it. Who said that having a dinner party would require so much work? Later that night, I gave me one of my dramatic speeches about how good everyone did and more blah, blah, blah. We watched some James Bond movies and have some good laughs just about everything,

Day 4: Sunday

With reports of a snow storm hitting South Carolina, we scrabbled to get on the road back home. It was hard because I had managed once again to get only 3 hours of sleep, but we got on the road and headed back home. The roads were not that bad at all. While we were traveling on this highway, we could see the trees on the side covered in ice and frost. That could have been a nice picture. It was like this wintry wonderland. We stopped at some places for shopping and had some dinner on the way. My regret this day was that I didn’t have an opportunity to walk the beach.

I really had fun although I daresay this might be the last time I go on the annual Myrtle Beach pilgrimage. I like the way we all united together for a cause. We were showed solidarity in our goal.

There were a lot of things that happened, not necessarily major, but it made me see more and more than I have social anxiety. It’s this same anxiety that makes me want to hide in the corner when surrounded by people I know little or nothing about. Another problem I seem to have is the inability to communicate effectively. I have this problem with my core friends, and it’s reaching a breaking point. I need to learn to deal and handle it. There’s a reason I would never rent or own a house with other people. I would go crazy. I’m so use to being independent and worrying about just me. I guess that’s why me and my friends conflict so much. They have younger siblings living them, and I don’t, so that means that there’s going to be a cultural or sociological clash. I need to expand and/or my social skills to be deal with large groups of people instead just one person at a time. I never know. One day I might find myself in a house with a wife and a nimiety of kids. For most people, going on vacation is about just having fun. For me it’s about having fun and also learning new things about myself and my environment. In this case, it would be my social environment. That was my cognitive content.