A DAY AT THE BEACH

 <This blog originally appeared on the Sand in our Shorts blog July 2022>>

It’s that time of year, you know, beach season. A time to pack up your beach bag and escape to the shore for bit of fun and sun (and in my case, the inevitable sunburn).

Popular activities which can only be enjoyed at the beach include body surfing, boogie boarding, sand-castle building, and fighting off seagulls for the last potato chip on your plate.

As the sun goes down, you repack your bag and head for a local beach dive bar. Popular post-day-at-the-beach drinks include Pina Colada, Mojito, Orange Crush, and the much less popular but certainly appropriate Seagull Wine. Not something I've ever heard of, but I'm picturing a nice pinot gris with a soaring seagull on its label. I could not be more wrong.

Those of you with a curious mind will have your finger twitching on your mouse to scamper off to Google-land. I’ll save you the trouble.

OH, THE PLACES I'VE BEEN

 <Originally Published October, 2011>

 

Congratulations!

Today is your day.

You’re off to Great Places!

You’re off and away!

 

So begins the motivational book Oh, The Places You’ll Go by the esteemed Dr. Seuss. The book was first published in 1990, years after my own graduation from high school, but if someone had given it to me, I would have scoffed. Why would anyone want to go explore that big scary world when everything I wanted/needed was right here in my small Ohio town? I planned to live in the same area–possibly the same house–where I had grown up and raise a whole passel of children who would wear the same unflattering Orange and Black school colors and then they’d grow up and have babies of their own and live right next door to me. In a word, I was wanderlust-less. So even if Oh, The Places You’ll Go had been available, its encouragement to go off and see the world would have been wasted on me. 

BAD CHOICES MAKE GOOD STORIES, Summer 2022 Edition

Life is about making choices. Sometimes we make good choices, and sometimes we make bad choices. They, especially bad choices, are part of the learning process. For example, if someone tells you you’ll burn yourself if you touch the hot stove and yet you make the bad choice to touch it anyway, you learn for yourself that it is indeed hot and you won’t touch it again (shoutout to my li'l sis!) Or if you love wearing white pants while drinking red wine, knowing that one splish or splash will ruin them, yet you make the bad choice to wear them anyway. (That would be me…a lesson I’m still stubbornly refusing to learn.) (Actually, I think that’s the definition of insanity…doing the same thing but expecting a different outcome. But I digress.)  

Bad choices seem to have an affinity for summertime activities.  Skipping sunscreen while reading/snoozing on the beach? Bad choice. Or consider the ever-popular Slip-n-Slide. Rarely does one look back and consider that a good choice. Or inviting a dog/cat/child to join you for a summertime siesta in the hammock. Not a good choice—unless you like ending up face down in dog—ah—waste. Trying the gold-medal-winning Triple Gainer you saw in the Olympics? Usually a bad, bad choice. But learning experiences, all.

A DAY AT THE BEACH

<<In case you missed this one on our Sand in our Shorts blog...>>

It’s that time of year, you know, beach season. A time to pack up your beach bag and escape to the shore for bit of fun and sun (and in my case, the inevitable sunburn).

Popular activities which can only be enjoyed at the beach include body surfing, boogie boarding, sand-castle building, and fighting off seagulls for the last potato chip on your plate.

As the sun goes down, you repack your bag and head for a local beach dive bar. Popular post-day-at-the-beach drinks include Pina Colada, Mojito, Orange Crush, and the much less popular but certainly appropriate Seagull Wine. Not something I've ever heard of, but I'm picturing a nice pinot gris with a soaring seagull on its label. I could not be more wrong.

KINDA PISSED ABOUT NOT BEING A MERMAID

 

Ran into these kitchen towels while shopping at The Attic at East Beach today and they got me to thinking. I didn’t know I there were opportunities available to actually be a mermaid, but I do live in The Mermaid City (Norfolk, VA—more on that in a bit) and it seems only fitting that should be one. So yeah, I am kinda pissed that I'm not.

As always, everything one needs to know can be found on the Internet, so I did a little research on the topic. 

The term “mermaid” literally translates to Sea-lady (Old-English “mere” meaning sea, and maid—as you may remember from The Twelve Days of Christmas—is a young lady). These mystical half-women/half-fish creatures were often spotted when “Sailing, sailing, o’er the bounding main.” Going back thousands of years, they’ve been incorporated into folklore throughout the world. Christopher Columbus himself reported seeing them when he explored the Caribbean late in the 1400s. (It’s possible he confused a manatee with a mermaid…lord only knows what those sailors drank in those days.) Reports of mermaid sightings continue into the 21^st century. (Again, what are those sailors drinking? They need to share!)

WRITING INCOGNITO

Jayne Ormerod is not my real name, but there a real person behind the nom de plume (translation: pen name.) Many (okay, most) people ask me, “Why do you write under a pseudonym?"

My first answer is always to assure them I am not running from the law. Or even the taxman. No the decision was much more personal: to be me, or not to be me? That was the question. Obviously, I chose not to be me. 

Here is the reason why... 

Picture this: A family dinner with my active-duty-military husband and twelve-year-old son, sitting on the back deck enjoying the gentle summer breeze. I’d prepared a meal of spicy shrimp scampi and Italian bread smothered with melted cheese, green onions and poppy seeds. After a glass (or three) of a spunky Pinot Grigio, I worked up enough courage to confess my lifelong secret.

WHAT I DID ON SUMMER VACATION--in 1972

This graphic popped up on my Facebook feed the other day, and I realized that times have not changed. It's a right of passage every September for students to write an essay on what they did on summer vacation. So here's mine. Granted, the vacation was in 1972, but through the prism of time I have come to appreciate what my parents did--and did not--teach us.  

The “educational” tag is SO over rated.  Especially when it comes to summer vacations.  My parents (a self-employed business man and an elementary school teacher) made it their mission to make sure we learned something over the summer break.  So while my friends were water skiing on Lake Michigan or riding donkeys down to bottom of the Grand Canyon or hanging out with Mickey & Minnie, my family was marching through the Smithsonian in DC or traipsing along the Freedom Trail in Boston or sitting (snoozing) through historical lectures in the City of Brotherly Love. 

   Did I have VA-CAY Envy?  You bet I did!

VERY SUPERSTITIOUS...

Have you checked the calendar today? Yup. It’s Friday the 13^th. Does that scare you?

According to my sources (the Internet), thirteen is an unlucky number. Historically it has something to do with the number of people seated at the dinner table. Why? Let’s see…how many were at The Last Supper? Thirteen. And we all know how that turned out. How many, according to the Norse myth, were at the table before Loki arrived uninvited and then some really bad things happened, like, people died? Twelve, plus Loki equals thirteen. The code of Hammurabi skips right over a 13th Law. There must be something to this...

Twelve is considered a “perfect” number (twelve months in a year, twelve gods of Olympus, twelve hours in half of a day.) It then follows that the number thirteen must be equally UN-perfect, right? Or so the superstitious minded say. Peoples’ fear of the number thirteen, labeled triskaidekaphobia (that’s a mouthful, isn’t it?) is evident through the centuries. Even today you might hop on an elevator in a high-rise and notice there is no 13th floor.   

CELEBRATE GOOD BOOKS, COME ON!

 

Those who know me know I don’t pay particular attention to these National Observance days. There’s too many to track, over 2,100 according to the National Observance Day website << https://nationaldaytoday.com >>. I’ll do the math for you…that averages almost 200 per month! Works out to be about six per day! More than enough to drive a woman to drink…more!

Of course, my lack of attention means I’ve been known to miss the big ones, like National Son’s Day, or National Mutt Day. But since we celebrate those every day at Casa Ormerod, no need to feel guilty about not giving a social media shoutout every time these important dates roll around.

There’s another National Observance Day on the horizon that I also celebrate every single day, but thought it’s time for the rest of the world to show it a little more love. So today I’m dedicating my blog to raising awareness of this little known but very important day.

SWEET KINDNESS

On the occasion of a recent celebration on my behalf, a dear friend contacted a woman who not only makes the best sugar cookies, she also specializes in custom decorations. My friend ordered two dozen cookies, telling the baker that I am a writer and suggesting she decorate them with writerly things like quills or a typewriter or other icons that represent my love for creating stories. The baker asked my name and my friend shared Jayne Ormerod. Isn’t that a thoughtful surprise?

When my friend picked up the cookies, the baker was so excited to share her beautiful creations reflecting images of my book covers. The sweet woman had gone above and beyond to look up my writerly profile and decorate the cookies accordingly. Isn’t that a delightful gesture?

LIFE LESSONS FROM THE GARDEN, Part One

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: You’re never too old to learn something new. <<click here to read a previous blog post with a similar theme.>> 

And here we go again.

Even though I am rapidly approaching that magic number (no, not the legal drinking age, but the one for retirement), I'm still learning stuff. Every single day. I recently learned that playful pups and edible gardens do not have to be mutually exclusive. This is such a eureka moment for me, as it is contrary to a lesson I learned in my youth and have never forgotten. Dogs relieve themselves wherever they want, even if it’s in a pumpkin patch. Call me a germaphobe, but I just don’t like the idea of dog poo leeching in my Thanksgiving pie.

FAIR WINDS AND FOLLOWING SEAS...What the Heck Does That even Mean?

<Flashback Friday…someone used a phrase the other day that I’d heard very often throughout my thirty years as a military spouse, but rarely hear in the civilian world. And when I heard it, I tried to remember what it meant. No luck. (This getting older thing is no joke!) Thank goodness I wrote this blog a decade ago that I could quickly refresh my memory. And I thought maybe some of my blog visitors would be interested to have their memories refreshed, or maybe learn something new. So here is a repeat post from April 2, 2012.>>

 At a recent Hail and Farewell (a party wherein new reports to the command are welcomed and those departing are bid a fond adieu), the Lieutenant heading off to Norfolk was offered the traditional wishes of “Fair winds and following seas.”  Since I’ve been around the Navy world for almost 30 years, I’ve heard this phrase uttered hundreds, if not thousands, of times.  But (and this may be a sign of maturity on my part) this time it got me to wondering what exactly it meant.  So I let my fingers do the surfing through the cyber world, and I thought I’d save y’all from duplicating my efforts and today seems a good opportunity to share my newly acquired knowledge.

THE SCENE OF THE CRIME

 

     The first thing any good detective does when entering a crime scene is to look for clues. Not just a quick once over, but an inch-by-inch detailed inspection for a stray hair, an unexplained fingerprint, or anything out of the ordinary. Every detail is documented, for it may become important later in the investigation.

SLEEPING IS FOR SISSIES (Or Those Not Invested in a Can't-Put-Down Book)

Let’s start the morning with a quick quiz. Pencils ready? Let’s go.

Which of the following statements best defines the term “Book Hangover”:

     A)  That feeling of sleep deprivation from staying up too late reading a book you can’t put down.

    B)  The Inability to start a new book because you’re still living in the last book’s world.

     C) That moment when you finish a book, look around an realize that everyone is just carrying on with their lives as though you didn’t just experience emotional trauma at the hands of a book.

     D)  Difficulty entering the reality of everyday life after spending the last 48 hours fully immersed in an amazing book.

DAYLIGHT SAVING--WHAT A JOKE!

Are we really “saving daylight” when we shift the clocks forward in the spring and back in the fall? Or are we really “saving energy?” Perhaps a more appropriate term would be “shifting daylight”.  

The concept of daylight saving (otherwise known as Summer Hours in other parts of the world) has gone in and out of favor.  There have always been proponents, touting the energy saved, and the opponents, saying that if people want to enjoy daylight, they should just get out of bed an hour earlier each day (I’m a card-carrying member of this camp!)  Not only is it disruptive to schedules—and anyone who has children or animals who don’t grasp the concept, this can be an incredibly frustrating semi-annual transition—there is some evidence that the number of accidents increase the week after a change as people adjust to the new light levels during their commute.

Hard to believe, the whole thing started out as a joke.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT RHYMES WITH FRIDAY?

WINE!

If a writer really cares about their readers, they will conduct careful research on a given topic. Facts must be accurate. Unusual tidbits will make the story interesting. Whacky scenarios need be plausible (hence my attempt to outrun a bull across an open field, but that's another story for another day.)

JAYNE'S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET

I thought I was alone in the world, carrying a deep dark secret. I wouldn’t admit it to anyone, this terrible, unforgivable thing I did. It started when I was a child, and has continued throughout my adult life (and that’s a pretty long time.)

Attending a conference when a well-known author asked if anyone else did this, I raised my hand. Actually raised it for all of the attendees to see! And so did a lot of other people! I wasn’t alone!

What is this terrible secret?

WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW! (Or Have at Least Researched)

Credit to Tom Watterson/Calvin and Hobbes

    

 The number one rule writers are taught in the hard-knock school of writing is “write what you know.” Which is all fine and good, unless you are a pushing-social-security-age, rule-following female who writes about murder. I am going to put this out there to all of my past, present and future readers, I HAVE NEVER KILLED ANYONE just to research a book (or for any reason, for that matter). Nor have I ever stumbled across a dead body lying in the garden or sitting in an empty garage or floating in the surf (my husband has, but that’s another story for another day.) The only dead bodies I have seen/touched have been prettified, with hair styled, dressed in their best Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes, lying in a casket.

But I will admit to having done a few things, all in the name of research.

THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS--Coastal Style

 

’Tis the season for Christmas Carols, and parodies thereof.  Perhaps the most parodied song ever (seasonal or otherwise) is "The Twelve Days of Christmas".  Who amongst us hasn’t smiled when we heard the barking dogs’ version or the Redneck tune?  Today I offer up a slightly different version of my own making that represents beach life.  Feel free to sing along! 

On the first day of Christmas, I saw along the shore:
A lighthouse with a red door.
 
On the second day of Christmas, I saw long the shore:
Two fiddler crabs;
  And a lighthouse with a red door.
 

A WALK ON THE BEACH with Yours Truly!

It seems only fair if my fellow Mutt Mysteries authors reveal a little about themselves on this blog, that I do so, too! So, today I’ve “interviewed” myself. Read on to learn more about me, Jayne Ormerod, and a few of my favorite beach things. And a bonus at the end, in lieu of a bio I’ve included memories of my childhood Christmases. 

What’s your favorite beach to visit? Being a military spouse, I have spent most of my adult life living within a flip-flop’s throw of the ocean. (There was that two-year tour in Memphis, TN. Yes, the military has some offices in Millington. Go figure.) But since I’m not much of a sitter, I like a beach with some action, so I have to say the rocky shores along Easton Bay in Newport, RI. Cliff Walk makes for a fabulous stroll, with the water breaking below you and the ostentatious mansions on the other. My all-time favorite Cliff Walk experience was a snowy New Year’s Eve. We were the only ones crazy enough to be out there in that weather, and the icy snow made the rocky path very slippery. But it was absolutely magical.