Beach Joys

Whew! Okay, missed a day. You see, being sick and all, I decided we didn't have anything better to do than go ahead with our plans to make a day trip to the beach, 3 hours away. I felt like hell and probably would have rescheduled; but Larry had hemmed and hawed about being able to take a day off next week instead, so I said, "Fine. We'll stick to this week. Who cares if it kills me?" Because no one can be passive-aggressive like a Jewish wife/mother...

Anna opted, once again, to stay home and hang with her best friend's family for the day. We wasted no energy cajoling her to join us, as her staying home meant we wouldn't have to take 2 cars and thereby saved us about 60 dollars in gas money. Sometimes an alienated teen can be a useful thing to have. Also, her staying home meant that she wasn't sitting with us all day, dementor-like, sucking away any enjoyment we might be deriving from watching the younger ones frolic in the sand and surf.

Not that that bothers me, or anything...

So we packed up the 2 boogie boards, and the cooler full of food, and the 2 cute little beach chairs I got for the girls for only 5 dollars each; and we didn't pack the beach umbrella, which had mysteriously disappeared since last year, and we set off in search of some summer fun. I knitted all the way there, which was nice, even if I did have a sore throat, and laryngitis, and was sleep-deprived because either Susie or I kept waking up coughing for the previous 2 nights. But no problem, really.

We even remembered to bring Larry's new kite. I've mentioned before how flying kites isn't Larry's strong suit, but how he nevertheless persists in his dream of finally getting one of these contraptions aloft. As I am the sort of wife that believes in encouraging her husband in his aspirations, I gave him a real kite (as in, it cost more than 3 dollars and didn't come from Target) for Father's Day. He and the kids were sure that this would finally be the day that they would enjoy the family-bonding experience of kite-flying at the beach.

You know I'm giving it this build-up for a reason, right?

According to the company we bought the kite from, the kite we purchased is perfect for beginners and foolproof to fly. Foolproof, my a**. You'd think the thing was made of lead, the way it insisted on hugging the ground.

So now I hate the kite people for lying to me. You would, too, if you had to stand there for half an hour watching your 11-year-old son attempt to make this thing take the air; and then watch him cry when he couldn't do it. I made elaborate plans to return the purported flying apparatus with an irate note for the prevaricators in the catalog-writing department; but then Larry effectively put the kibosh on that idea by accidentally breaking the kite while packing up the van later.

As far as flying kites goes, my spouse is still the Charlie Browniest.

Other than the kite-flying debacle, however, the day was great. We took a zillion pictures, Susie looked extremely cute napping in her new little chair, and I was happy not to be home feeling as though I should be cleaning something. I would say the beach was wall-to-wall people, only beaches don't have walls. Let's just say it was super crowded with great masses of humanity; and I can't help feeling that, after spending a day observing these great masses, there should be some sort of rules on just who, exactly, is allowed to wear a bikini.

We stopped at Burger King for dinner on the way back, just to make our beach vacation complete. And then I came home to lots of comments on my post about business executives feeling the pinch. Maybe I should send in some low-cost vacation ideas to the WSJ. Do you think their readers know to order from the Dollar Menu?