Body less than perfect? Ever wonder if you would again feel comfortable enough to wear shorts? Sleeveless tops? A two-piece?

Get those togs out of the Goodwill bag and come on down to Surfside Beach, South Carolina. No embarrassment here to be walking along the shore in white socks and flip-flops, bathing suits with tops that guaranteed to 'keepemfromfloppin' but should be sent back for refund, tummies that in some alternate stylish universe would be covered, hanging out jiggling along in time to music blasting from the Elvis impersonator on a pool deck. No shame here.

Come on down!

Not many Spring Break college kids here; most of the beach goers are well past college age. One announced from a near-by table last night at dinner that he was about to attend his 59th college class reunion. By anyone's standards, that's a long-lived life. I sat there momentarily wondering if he would arrive at the alumnae dance with his wispy reddish comb-over, and would everyone say how good he looked for a man his age...and by extension how snazzy he looked driving that Mercedes.

Ah but back to the beach.

I may have mentioned in a previous blog, or you may have figured it out for yourself, that I am an 'awfulizer.' I speak positively but think disasteriously. Inside I am waiting for the next tragedy to befall the world. Sadly, I am not often disappointed. And so I sit here, eight stories up from the beach, and look out over the Atlantic, calm waves coming in and going out with that regularity one come to expect from waves and tides, waiting and watching.

For what you wonder?

My eyes peer at the eastern horizon wanting to be the first to see it, to sound the warning, that the wall of water which is the tsunami to end all tsunamis is headed for South Carolina and by extension, the east coast. It could happen. All those polyester clad beach bums, those who have saved their dollars for their one week at the beach and those to whom life has been exceedingly grand who own property on the shore, and any errant college student who has picked this week to sun and surf here, all three groups will hear my warning and take off for the inland hills. But wait! There are no inland hills in South Carolina. Only flatness, swamps, low country.

I am thinking I should get a head start on the evacuation and let the warning sirens do the work for which I had planned to win a Medal of Freedom, or whatever the president calls that highest civilian honor. Let someone else be a heroine.

And that's what I think about it.

The cat only loves me when it thunders.

Sound like a country western song? It is the life I live with the feline I picked out for myself at the animal shelter.

He follows my husband around like a puppy from room to room. He sits on his lap. He won't sit on mine...and mine is bigger by the way.

He is most friendly to me when it's near bedtime because that's when he gets treats, the cat not the husband. Right now it's a package of salmon flavored, and smelling, soft chewy things whose aroma wafts through the room for an hour or so after opened and exposed to the air.

I have taught him tricks...again, the cat, I mean. He can high-five, lay down, jump up, chase but not fetch, give me his paw. I have been unsuccessful at this moment in getting him to speak or to roll over although I might have mentioned there is an around-the-world-trip involved if I succeed in getting him trained to that level. Again, the trip would be for my husband and me not the cat.

And that's what I think about it.

The robins have returned. The rains have started. The flood waters have rolled up over the shores of the Ohio River and onto acre upon acre of farmland in both Indiana and Kentucky. Crocuses and tulips are determined to bloom before Easter and the trees are getting fluffy, a sure sign of buds and hope for future leaves. The stores have sprouted Easter finery in Spring colors and these have overshadowed Mardi Gras and St. Patrick's Day decorations.

It wasn't such a great winter but fortunately, memories are short-lived with much of the ice and snow placed conveniently in the distant part of our minds.

For the next few weeks the talk will be of the rain and the aforementioned flooding and when the fields around will be solid enough (and therefore drained) to hold a tractor in order to plow and plant Spring crops.

One gentleman had to be rescued last week from a river camp along the Ohio. A river camp is a thin line of huts and small mobile homes that line the Indiana side of the Ohio River. Mostly for summer fishing, the abodes are not winterized and not secure on their foundations. Law enforcement was called upon to find him by his family who had homes inland, but did not find him at his camp. Looking into other camp sites and trailers they finally found him up river. He had been moving ever upward and staying at the 'dry' sites of neighbors until the waters there rose. He then would look to find other dry ground, all of which was fast becoming inundated with flood water. He really never considered leaving the banks of the Ohio, even though the banks hadn't been seen for two weeks. Since the flooding happens every year and could have been predicted by anyone with second grade intelligence, I wonder how much tax payer money went to rescue him one more time from his stubborn fascination with flood.

But the good news is that Spring indeed is on its way and will arrive in a week or so. That makes me happy. And that's what I think about that.