A Life Of Service Is A Life Best Lived

Mermaid Cottages on Tybee Island, GA is a magical and mystical collection of cottages run by an equally magical and mystical cast of mermaids and mermen on the island.  Did you know that each time you stay at a Mermaid Cottage you help sponsor a service dog or guide dog for persons with disabilities?

That's right!  Proceeds from each Mermaid Cottages rental and proceeds from the Mermaid Cottages' all natural Beach Bum Biscuits dog treats go towards sponsoring life partners for those in need.

Some of the dogs are specially trained for living and working with persons who are blind or sight impaired, but some of the dogs are also service dogs for persons with other types of disabilities, too.  Persons with hearing or mobility impairment can now be paired with specially trained dogs to assist them in every day living and enable some to continue their careers!  Some of the specially trained dogs are also contributing to the rehabilitation and continued independence of much honored military service veterans.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To date, Mermaid Cottages has sponsored and placed six guide dogs and service dogs.  You can help support and help continue this wonderful service each time you stay at a Mermaid Cottages rental and every time you purchase Beach Bum Biscuits.  If Beach Bum Biscuits are not yet sold at your local pet shop or veterinary clinic ask them to carry Beach Bum Biscuits and become an honorary Mermaid or Merman!

For more information about Mermaid Cottages, Beach Bum Biscuits and how you can help further this cause contact Mermaid Cottages at mermaidcottages.com.

Here are a few of the guide dogs and service dogs sponsored by Mermaid Cottages and Beach Bum Biscuits and also a few other dogs who are now fans of Beach Bum Biscuits and dogs that have been sponsored for special causes in communities throughout the U.S.!

A life of service is a life best lived!  Live your best life and be of service to someone who deserves a guide dog or service dog!

Sanford's Place Cottage-A Tybee Time Machine

Just as H.G.Wells and Jules Verne captured our imaginations with their fantasy romps in their Time Machines, I've discovered my own version of a time machine that instantly teleported me into the pasts of my long buried memories.  A time that seems so foreign here in the 21st century to anyone born in recent decades.  A sensory overload so fantastic it was as if I had discovered a hidden passageway through an armoire into the kingdom of Narnia.  Thus began my incredible journey back to the sights and smells and sounds of my childhood,  now seen fresh and new through my eyes as an adult.

As if embracing a long, lost friend or a so seldom visited favorite relative, I recently ventured to my beloved Tybee Island to work on a project.  By now, I pride myself on having enough collected knowledge and travelled trial and error to know I must consult my dear Tybee High Priestess and friend, Diane Kaufman, as to  the best place for me to live like a local on the island.  Out of her collection of vintage, restored Mermaid Cottages she said, "You should hop on over to Sanford's Place.  You'll be out and about around the island and it's the perfect place for you to relax with your dogs at the end of every day.  Whichever direction you choose to go on the island, you'll enjoy walking from Sanford's Place!"

My usual prep work before a visit to anywhere includes fantasizing about what new discoveries I hope to make in the way of food, drink, the arts and falling in love with things I've never been exposed to before.  Never did I imagine or fantasize that I would be mesmerized and captivated by a trip back to my familiars from long ago.

The lock box to Sanford's Place was at the side entrance to the cottage.  It was late at night, so anxious as I was to see the inside of my new haven, I invoked my too little used common sense and surmised that I needed to slow my roll and carefully plant my size 13 brogans on the steps leading up to the screen door.  Careening off unfamiliar steps and landing jack knifed on the lawn while toting all my luggage and two excited little dogs was not how I wanted to introduce myself to Sanford's Place or my island neighbors.  What?  You don't think I would ever make more than one trip to and from the car!  I was to be on Tybee Island for several days, so there would be plenty of opportunities for me to trip, step in holes and display my less than precision coordination for the residents and other visitors.

Once inside, the dogs took off to run and scamper through the house while I got my bearings and opened my eyes wide to take in my surroundings.  I'm a healthy 6'4", 220 pound giant, so it was again best to survey the area for steps, thresholds, narrow walkways and any unfamiliar objects d'art that might encourage my bull in a china shop loping to prematurely introduce my face to the floor.  Besides, the dogs were checking under the furniture and behind doors for any lurking ghosts. Yes, Virginia.  The Savannah area is famous for ghosts and some of them love island living as much as I do. Yet, all was clear and safe.  All that was left for me to do was test the complimentary Wi-Fi connection and choose which bedroom would be my chosen slumber chamber.

You can't fool me.  The rest of you are just like me.  If you had been traveling alone like me and had a choice of beds and rooms in which to sleep you might even be swayed to do your best Goldilocks impression and try them all.  As for me, my comparison of the bedrooms did not yield bunk beds in either one, so I resigned myself to the double bed.   What? Don't hate and I won't lie.  Given the choice I will always choose a top bunk. My dogs are my travel companions and judgemental as they may be they cannot mock me or forbid me the occasional juvenile indiscretion.

Besides, whether you neither heed or believe my affection for ghosts, the Sand Man is alive and well on Tybee Island.  All ye who suffer from insomnia get thee to a bed on Tybee Island as prepared by a Mermaid Cottages housekeeper.  There's no use in trying to put it into words.  These mermaids (and mermen!) are truly magical and mystical.  Sweet dreams are bestowed on all who slumber therein.  If you don't show up for appointments those in the know will check the Mermaid Cottages beds first to rouse you from your coma!

If you should be able to part with one of these enchanted sleep chambers, you need only amble from room to room and touch, feel, smell and gaze upon the vintage decorations that fill Sanford's Place. The furniture and throw pillows harken from decades past and the knick knacks that peek out at you from the mantels and what not tables give you permission to just close your eyes and recall voices and conversations of loved ones you hold dear in your memories.  The entire cottage experience reminds you to appreciate what you have and to let those you love know it.  Make every moment count and be joyous of the future memories you help make for others.

Each time I leave Tybee Island I promise myself I'll hurry back.  I'm collecting new memories from my journeys and gladly remembering those from my past.

It's being present in your life.  It's making the effort to contribute.  It's realizing you're worth the trouble. It's island paradise.  It's Cottage Cheeese!






 

A BLOG Is Born

Tis Better To Be Thought A Fool Than To Open One's Mouth And Remove All Doubt...

To paraprhase a borrowed adage, I'm about to remove all doubt.

I'm a former highly compensated, spoiled executive.  Sound familiar?  Notice I said "former".  I am currently not an executive and I'm certainly no longer highly compensated.   Spoiled is something I own and can't deny.  Thus begins this saga.  Continue on at your own risk.

I now see myself as a modern day Buckwheat with pied opinions and curious notions about life as I see it and live it.  I am a man, so rest assured my musings and ramblings are flawed.  I often alternate between being a mute (see the first line of this blog), to not being able to put two or more words together in a sentence that resemble any type of coherence, to diarrhea of the mouth to the point where someone has to smack me and say, "Shut the hell up!" (again, refer to the first line of this blog).

I am neither a person of color, nor a child of the depression, but the character Buckwheat from the original Our Gang/Little Rascals series is an apt self description.  Before long you'll be convinced that if I am nothing else I am self aware and no longer want to expend the energy to disguise it.

I've worked in public, high profile positions for over 35 years and I've been involved in every aspect of big business from marketing, public relations, human resources, training, managing, investigating, hiring, firing and diagnosing just about every personality disorder known in the universe (as well as self diagnosing my own).  Conversely, as an individual I am about as painfully shy a person as you'll ever  meet and rest assured people shock the heck out of me all the time.

I'm a son of the south, raised Baptist with all the hellfire and brimstone and guilt a sinner can carry and a self professed Mama's boy.  What can I say?  It's true.  Men like to think they're in charge, but if it weren't for the strong, steel magnolias in my life I would be even more of a mess. 

 Yes, get used to it. I referenced an image of the strong women portrayed in the movie Steel Magnolias.  I live mainly in my head.  I'm not used to nor am I usually capable of expressing myself in my own words.  I frequently and shamelessly refer to and quote lines from movies to explain my feelings.  My life has been lived to the dialogues and sound tracks of the likes of Gone With The Wind, Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, Steel Magnolias, Peyton Place and anything and every thing Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Vivian Leigh, Dorothy Malone, Elizabeth Taylor and their peers ever uttered on screen.

The rest of the time I will speak in parables and sayings used over and over again by my mother and grandmother my whole life.  If ever I behave as a gentlemen with gracious southern charms you should thank their precious memories.  They tried.  Lord knows.  They tried.  In the south few people ever speak directly and they are most often passive agressive.  Sometimes, I think they spoke in parables and riddles just to give me pause and give themselves time to prepare for my next bewilderment.

One thing I cannot deny is that I have been loved.  As pitiful as I can seem and as lost and confused as I truly am it is not because I was never cared for or nurtured.  But, I am a man.  I've been behind the eight ball since birth.

As time goes on, I do hope you find laughter and humor in my rantings and if you choose to confront me, challenge me, instruct me, correct me or inform me please be kind.  I have a lot of stuff bouncing around in my head and it's time I figure out what I need to hold on to and what I need to let go.  It's a constant process and a long suffering journey, but I owe it to myself to see it through.  Right?

To make matters worse, I am now convinced I am in the throes of male menopause.  Don't laugh.  I've spent most of my life in the presence of women, both personally and professionally, and I learned to PMS with the best of them.  I am nothing if not adaptable.

I'll stop there.  You'll figure it out soon enough.  I'm a typical man.  It's all about me.

I hope to share with you my discoveries, victories, trials and maybe even your Tickle Box will get turned over along the way.  Smile.  Laugh.  It gives you face value.

Does anyone else hear the music and lyrics, "What kind of fool am I...?" as my soundtrack? 

Stay tuned.  I might write or say something significant.  No one wants to miss that.  Especially me.

"It sure beats waking up to some guy slapping makeup on your puss first thing in the morning..." Bette Davis in The Star.

It's laughter.  It's regret.  It's not knowing the future.  It's doing my best to remember the good times. It's call living.  It's Cottage Cheese.