Back From The Jersey Shore!
We got back this evening, and my main feeling is
WAAAAAAAAH! (go up about ten octaves for baby voice)
It was so great! NO Internet unless you went to...wait for it... How Ya Brewin', which had some PCs. I checked my email twice but there was nothing worth responding to. Also turned my cell phone off, and my brain.
We were staying with my mom, in a nice little two-story house on the bay side of Long Beach Island. My oldest sister left the day we arrived, so it was just the three of us. (My brother and his family arrive there tonight.) The walk to the beach was half a mile, and I went for two swims a day. The Atlantic was ROUGH! Huge waves, strong currents, big breakers--what can I say, I like it rough. I'm so out of shape that I thought the first swim that my heart would explode! It got easier every time, and I spent an average of 90 minutes in the water at a time. (With short breaks to sit on the sand and pant like a dog.) Nothing, but NOTHING, makes me happier than being in the water. Those few of you who read the water porn chapter in TP&TP might have picked that up.
I grew up going into the ocean every summer, and I got very macho about it. Muscular guys would swim out to where I was (which was pretty far out, but that's why they have lifeguards), get bludgeoned by the waves, and swim back to shore. EVERY TIME! PUSSIES! EAT MY SEAWEED!
My husband hates the water (which I only found out after we had been married more than ten years), but on two separate occasions, he did run in, scream at how cold it was, and run back out. That, my friends, is true love. The strangest moment: I stepped on a fish. I was bobbing in the water, and I'm always careful to make sure my feet can easily hit the bottom. Often you get nipped by a crab, but it's a little pinch. My foot came down on something...blobby. Then it slid out from under my foot and I could feel it was a sizeable fish!
One really fun day began with s-x, then my husband went for a bike ride and Mom and me got pedicures. Matching pink sparkly nailpolish. I'm a deep red or black polish girl, but for once I figured my toes could look femme. Swimming, of course, and that night we went to a childhood favorite restaurant that my husband had never been to. It has not changed. It's called the Dutchman's Brauhaus, so you would be right if you thought there was a big cheesy cuckoo clock, lots of keg-related decor, etc.
The only slight downer is that my mother is elderly, and away from home, I could tell just how frail she is (although for someone her age, she's La Femme Nikita), and also that her mind is starting to fog up. Thank God, Alzheimer's doesn't run in our family, but she definitely gets confused. However, she did a lot of great cooking and we did the washing-up. At Long Beach Island she knows where everything is, and she loves to go shopping there. In NYC, not so much. She also reminisced a lot, which she's not prone to doing, so that was fun.
Also, I'm fair skinned so I don't tan, I burn. Every day, slather on the sunblock. Except for one trip to the beach, where I slathered myself everywhere EXCEPT MY FACE AND CHEST! Of course, the result was a ferocious sunburn, like a red beacon on a dark night. I called it my "Red Badge of Stupidity". Everyone who saw me made the same dumb jokes, "I see we got a little too much sun today, har de har har."
Oh, yeah, I forgot to add, I took a yellow pad and outlined most of the rest of TP&TP. I still don't know the ultimate ending, but at least now I know what I'm building towards, and the twists I want to throw in.
So how is everybody else?