The Freelance Retort: Beach Vacation -Part 1

I’m sitting on a tall beach house deck as I write; about 50 feet from the Atlantic.

Ocean, that is…Atlantic Ocean.

There’s an amazing full moon tonight spreading a liquid path across miles of placid waves.

It makes for a perfect background on a perfect summer night at the Jersey shore. Best thing is…no Snooki not even a Wooki.

So I’m not, so much, in a crappy mood any more because the beach is where crappy moods go to die.

Seriously, these dusty beach roads are littered with them and you really have to watch where you step; not to mention the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets….

Apologies to the Boss for stealing his line as a reference…but hey, it’s the Jersey shore. Who better to steal from… “The Situation”?

Aside from the mysterious gouge that appeared on my knee, along with the assorted scrapes and bruises, things are going pretty well. Not sure where the bruises came from but the gouge came from my knee, my bad knee, running into the pointed handle on the cabinet under the bathroom sink. There’s a nice bit of DNA still there, for the CSI boys if things should go south from here.

Next door, there’s a very heated beer pong game in progress. I don’t understand beer pong. Guzzling a cup of beer that has been sweetened with a ping pong ball that’s been rolling around in the dirt and crud of a garage all night.

Good times…

We hit the road at 7 AM, right on schedule, Saturday morning. First stop...the Cheesequake service area and rest stop on the Garden State Parkway. About the halfway point to the part of the Jersey shore we were heading.

Rest stops are an interesting place, with a lot of interesting people coming and going. You can observe a pretty good cross section of the whole of humanity passing by in just about five minutes, standing there by the men’s room, sipping your Frappuccino. And I have to tell you, much of humanity is kind of chubby and looks pretty bad in shorts.

Not to mention the funny looks on their faces from about two or three hours’ worth of backed up bladders.

They look a little better going out than coming in, which is usually the reverse when it comes to normal humanity.

I guess the Frappuccino’s and Coolata’s also help.

After resisting the multitudes of deals on sunglasses on display we're back on our way and in short measure we arrive at our little island of paradise by the sea.

But we have to kill a few hours before we can take possession of our humble little beach abode. So we have breakfast at a little outdoor café; but no guitars playing… all night, nor all day. Just Emily, our waitress, who couldn’t distinguish between white toast and an English muffin…but hey, it a beach town

Speaking of town, after breakfast we hit the shops and discovered that the merchants here have come up with a pretty smart idea! They actually sell T-shits and sweatshirts, and all kinds of stuff with the name of the place on them.

Brilliant! Why hasn’t anyone thought of this before?

Finally we’re able to access our little beach haven, a new house this year, for just the two of us instead of the usual ten. So it’s going to be a bit of an adjustment…maybe, but maybe not.

The house is nice; pretty much like our old place, except we’re confined to the upstairs apartment, which requires a short climb up the back stairs.

There’s a nice view of the ocean from the corner of the deck, and the Ax Murderer downstairs seems nice.

We unpack as fast as we can. I put on and take off the wet bathing suit the previous renter left behind, which I mistook for my own…and off to the beach we go.

Then back again, since we were so excited that we forgot to bring our beach chairs…and our towels…and our blanket.

Hey, it’s a learning curve…okay?

Eventually, we make our way through the dense weekend crowd to stake out our own little spot of sand where we can actually hear the ocean waves…somewhere…not far away.

And you know that whole bunch of chubby humanity I was talking about earlier? Well, they look even worse in bathing suits. But then, I’m no Brad Pitt either. I’m not even a peach Pit, whatever that means.

Afterwards, drinks on the deck, some small talk with the Ax Murderer and a nice causal terrazzo dinner.

Sunday was more of the same, which is definitely a good thing; except the Ax Murder had to go back to work, which was a bit of a disappointment, since I miss his witty banter.

More Retort in a couple of days….It’s my turn to pong…

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