Well, Amanda went in for an interview Wednesday afternoon to Biltmark, where Chris Mowbray works. Her interview was actually with Chris. She was asked to come back the next day for a second interview. She was there at 8am. At about 8:17, as I still lay in bed, the phone rang. Amanda had a new job!
She called Sabrina to give her two-weeks notice, and since Jessica is leaving to go to school in Savannah (and the fact that Sabrina had just given Amanda a raise) she wasn’t too happy. It’s great news, at any rate. Amanda also got a lady who just opened a shop on Wrightsville to sell some of her jewelry on consignment.
I feel a little bad about all the good news. Hurricane Katrina just blew away New Orleans and Biloxi. Everything’s flooded, hundreds of thousands are homeless. It’s terrible what’s happened, and the response to the disaster has been so slow. To make matters worse, one of the days when they were evacuating the Superdome, where a lot of people who couldn’t get out were sheltering, someone shot at a military evacuation helicopter. I’m thinking some people are enjoying the lawlessness. There’s been so much looting and violence. The first day after the storm landed, there were even police seen looting on the news. I can understand stealing food and water, but people who are breaking into stores, grabbing tennis shoes and plasma tvs, those people should be shot. They can’t be arrested because there’s nowhere to put them- so start shooting them and see how much chaos there is.
Gas Lines after Katrina on Carolina Beach Road in Wilmington, NC :: Zach DotseyWith all this, gas prices have skyrocketed in the past few days, since that Gulf area produces, if I recall, 25% of the country’s domestic oil. On Monday, when the storm hit, Amanda filled up on gas at lunch. As she was driving home that evening, it had shot up 40 cents. On Thursday, Amanda said there was a line for gas at the station right down the road on Carolina Beach, so I hopped on the bike and went to take some pictures. I thought it might be a bit of a historical moment. Rumors were running rampant of gas stations running out of gas, of an order to shit down gas stations at a certain time, fights at pumps, all kinds of stuff.
We left Wilmington yesterday to come to the beach for the annual Topsail Labor Day Weekend. Peggy and Earl were already here when we got here, but they were the only ones. I tell ya, it was nice only having to drive from Wilmington as opposed to Raleigh like the last two years. It’s really nice because of the current gas prices, but making the trip in 45 minutes (or less- I didn’t keep track and it really didn’t seem very long, but that’s probably about right) was nice.
Everyone else filtered in- Joanne and Pierre, Karen, Dain with Tripp and Anna Hawkins, Patsy and Bobby brought Jonathan and Matthew (one of Denise’s sons), Michael and Sarah got here, the Frazelle crew got here just at dinner and later last night Jon and Denise got here themselves. (Denise, for the record, is Jon’s girlfriend.)
The water was great. It was just the slightest bit rough, but the temperature was terrific. Amanda and I watched Tipp and Anna Hawkins as they collected shells up to the pier.
Last night, Amanda, Michael, Sarah and I played a game of Scrabble. It was pretty close between all of us but Sarah, who blew the rest of us away. Later a bunch of us played an extremely long game of Trivial Pursuit (90’s Edition, which we’ve had ever since Erin bought it one weekend at Toys R Us in Raleigh when we lived there). Nobody really won, but I think Joanne and Karen were winning, followed by Michael and Sarah, then Amanda and the Frazelle girls, then me with Jonathan and Matthew, although I think we tied Amanda et al by the time the game dissolved. After everyone went to bed, Michael pulled out the Xbox and we played Tiger Woods. Well, the list from above who played Scrabble before played Tiger Woods. Amanda and I used our own custom characters while Michael and Sarah used Veejay Singh and Tiger Woods, respectively. Our custom characters weren’t as good, but I beat Michael and Amanda by a stroke, Sarah by two.
Going to bed was pretty fun. It’s was around 2:30 by this point, and we were all kinda tired to the point of silly. (Sarah and I were making up something about the Captain Planet theme song subbing gyro for hero, then making up lyrics and such with sandwich parts.) It was like we were having a sleepover though, since we were all staying in the same room (with Michael on the floor).
This morning we had the traditional Peggy and Earl breakfast- grits, eggs, country ham, biscuits and cheese biscuits. Phil came by with Paddy for the day. He’ll go home tonight and come back again tomorrow. We went out on the beach and I tried some surfing again. This was my third attempt; the first was last Labor Day Weekend and I got up on the board once, the second was just one time Michael was in town and we’d gone to Anna and Barry’s and there was absolutely nothing to surf with, and this was the third. Well, I got up a few times this morning, then I got tired and went inside for a bit. I went back out and took pictures of various surfing Frazelles then, once back inside, exchanged whatever pictures had been taken so far with Pierre. I ate a bit and took a nap.
Amanda and a bunch of the girls went out to shop, because Peggy said that since Amanda had a new job, she’d buy her some new clothes for it. They didn’t end up finding anything, but while they were out I went out to surf again. This time I did really well. Barry said so (he was already out there). He was impressed with one wave I tried to take (it was pretty damn big) and joked a bit about that. Michael and Sarah came out to surf too, but the waves died down a bit so I went in. That also allowed them to each have a surf board instead of switching off. When I came back out, Michael was doing real well and Sarah was even catching a few.
Amanda and Hannah got some new bathing suits, which they were excited about, and then it was time to eat. There was fish, so I just poked around with some other food. Dain had taken the younger kids to catch crabs, and he boiled one for dinner. After dinner we set off a few fireworks until a cop came by and told us not to. He was really there for some people down the way, who happened to be lighting off some big ones.
After that the Frazelles, the Fauchers, the Dotseys, Michael and Sarah walked to Dairy Queen. We’re back now and everyone else is playing Guesstures. Since I’m done with this, I’m going to go join them.
A reminder to talk about the camcorder situation.