Down the Shore Everything’s All Right

You and your baby on a Saturday night. And it was. Saturday we arrived at the summer place on the Gulf. Took our traditional first night walk down to the Sandbar for our traditional first night burger at the bar. And walking home I felt the first tickle in my throat.

Fell into bed and slept for 12 hours. Woke up to the cold from hell.

I have spent my entire vacation huddled in a double layer of sweat pants and t-shirts under extra blankets in bed. On one day only did I get in the Gulf to bullshit with the members of the Noodle Brigade. I have ventured out only under the cabana. No walks on the beach. No nights spent drinking martinis until I drool. No smoking. No dinners at restaurants.

No. This vacation has seen me sucking on lemon slices, sipping hot tea and eating very lemony/garlicky tabooli, trying to beat this into submission.

The RLA has gotten brown. Star has gotten brown. Last night another pair of friends arrived from Tennesee to check out the summer place and consider buying in, and I all but talked to them through a screen door, with a hazmat mask on.

Do I know how to party or what?

Still, I managed to drag my sorry ass over to the most fabulous yarn store I’ve ever set foot in, and picked up a pile of wonderful things. Star and I explored the snotty bead store, and found, like so much else in life, that observation alters outcome. In this instance, the owner was in the store that day and the usually thinly veiled hostility of the help was transformed into cheery greetings and warm offers of assistance.

And, the best thing of all? I has a bucket. I found it in the surf as the RLA and I walked home from the Sandbar along the beach. There it was, bobbing and rolling and looking like it would wash ashore, and then not. I waded out in my shorts and snagged it. It is purple. It is mah bucket. Mr. Walrus, eat your heart out.