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?

Another Day at the Beach

Larry and I, in one of those lapses of sound judgment for which we are reknowned (can't remember how to spell that), decided to take the kids on another day trip to the beach. I even dragged myself out of bed at 6:30 to ensure an early start, which was very difficult, as I am still trying (after 4 months) to acclimate myself to Daylight Savings Time. Anyway, we actually had the car loaded with all our gear (no mean feat) and everyone had just gotten buckled in and Larry was just about to sit himself in the driver's seat when Brian announced that his stomach felt funny. Being seasoned parents, we took him inside and told him to hurry up and vomit, because we had to get going. Boy, is that kid going to have a lot to tell his therapist someday. 20 minutes and no puke later, we deposited him back in the car with his very own plastic bag to vomit into, if necessary. And we refused to feed him. So he arrived at the beach a very traumatized little kid. And Larry and I had a not-so-relaxing ride ourselves, listening to him whimper and waiting for him to blow, so to speak. But he didn't.

It just occurred to me that I have reset my theoretical vomit-counter-widget back to zero again. Darn.

We left Anna at home, because for some reason she had no desire to sit in a car with all of her detested siblings for 3 hours just to watch them frolic at the beach. Boy - you can just feel that love, can't you? We don't mind - that way we didn't have to take 2 vans. Though I think I will opt to take 2 vans next time anyway - Brian and Rachel and David bickered in the back seat most of the way home, to the point where I would have knocked all their heads together if I just could have reached them.

But it was fun - really. The weather was good, the beach wasn't too crowded, and I only spent about half the time worrying about rip tides. The other half I spent protecting Susie from some very hungry seagulls. One of them snatched a sandwich out of Theo's hand. I didn't even know that seagulls liked salami. As an added bonus, we were able to get some kite-flying in. To understand kite-flying in our family, you have to think back to Charlie Brown trying, year after sorry year, to kick that football without Lucy pulling it away from him at the last minute. Well, with Larry, this will be the year that we actually get the kite aloft for more than, say, 15 seconds. It wasn't, of course. Larry blames the kite. Luckily, the kids don't seem to notice this pattern and are always willing to give it another go. They are so sweet and trusting. Or stupid, maybe.

Now was that a nice thing to say about my own children? It's just that, sometimes, you just gotta wonder.

The ride home was blessedly uneventful, aside from the aforementioned constant bickering from the back row. And even that served its purpose - it made me glad to get home.

Summertime Diversions

Larry noticed that I was climbing the walls with boredom and consented to take time off from work to take us all to the beach for the day. It's proof that I was bored out of my skull that I agreed to sit in the car for 3 and a half hours so that we could lug half our worldly possessions (or so it seemed) from the state beach parking lot to the one empty place on the sand and broil ourselves in the sun all day. Oh, and then drive all the way home that same evening. Anyway, it seemed like a good idea when he suggested it; and once we got to the hot, sunny beach and the children were cavorting in the waves and digging in the sand, both Larry and I felt repaid for our efforts. Until I couldn't see. I thought that my glasses were fogging up, so I took them off; but everything looked misty and weird still, and I was just deciding that I was suffering from some form of rapid-onset glaucoma when I noticed (with some relief) that the lifeguard was blowing his whistle and waving for everyone to come back to shore (not that anyone could see him that well). So there we were, sitting in the middle of a cloud and listening to the ocean and gazing at the first line of breakers (because that was all we could see) and trying to convince the kids that they should just enjoy playing in the sand, which is normally fun, but it isn't as much fun when it feels as though you are sitting in a small gray box. We decided to wait out the inclement weather (which Larry posited was brought on by global warming), since we weren't exactly going to pile back into the car at that point; and after an hour or so of waiting (with some moderate episodes of whining) and after eating some extremely expensive french fries, we decided to amuse the children by taking them for a walk down the beach. So we all stumbled down to the shoreline (I should have tied us together with ropes, for safety) and felt our way down the beach aways and half-heartedly played Frisbee as if it were bright and sunny out. It was pathetic. Then we felt our way back to our umbrella and blankets, with Larry and I saying to each other the entire way, "I think it's lifting" and "Say, isn't that a second line of breakers out there?" By 3:30 or so, the fog rolled back enough for the lifeguards to allow us back into the water and then the sun did come out and even Susie rebounded from her lack-of-nap slump and ran around giggling at the edge of the sea. Of course, the lifeguards all went home shortly afterwards, leaving us (literally) high and dry again. So we decided to call it quits and head home ourselves. A little disappointing, but I would like to think that the kids learned a valuable lesson: even a day at the beach isn't always....a day at the beach.

We only had to take one van, as Theo is away, so our whole day (including the french fries) cost a mere 65 dollars, which came to less than one dollar per person per hour. I think that is pretty cost-effective, don't you? I'm trying to watch our spending, which isn't hard to do, because there isn't much of it to keep an eye on anymore. That's what happens when you decide to increase your mortgage by 50 percent, you know? And I can't help wondering whether the sacrifice is worth it, just to live in a house where I still don't know where everything is and where all of Larry's free time and disposable income for the next, oh, 10 years is going to be spent fixing it up. Owning a home isn't all it's cracked up to be. I find myself fantasizing about renting a nice little 2-bedroom condo with a maintenance team on call. No, I don't know where I would put the kids. That's irrelevant. Sometimes you just have to look out for Number One.

Today was typical end-of-summer exciting (we start our summer vacation early, so we're near the end now - at least, it feels that way). We are sort of pooled-out, if you know what I mean; so we sat around and did a Hershey's Cocoa jigsaw puzzle (which made me hungry, of course) and then we went out and got our free ice-cream cones at McDonald's. They're free because nowadays all the public library systems bribe children to read books over the summer. Our local system hands out coupon books if the children read (or are read to) a mere 15 titles. So far we've gotten free Pizza Hut personal pan pizzas and the aforementioned ice cream cones. We're looking forward to our free boxes of real-fruit popsicles from Whole Foods, small pizzas from Jerry's Subs and Pizza (actually, I'm sort of dreading that one - the lady who runs the shop gets rather hostile when she finds out that you are actually going to eat your food at one of her tables), and free yogurt from the local grocery store. Cool! We also have to remember to collect our free books from Barnes and Noble (you only have to read 8 books for that one); I have to fill out a separate form, however. The paperwork involved with these freebies can be a little overwhelming at times. Oh, well, all in a day's work....

We're updating our car to the digital age by having a radio with CD player installed (my birthday present - thanks, Dad!). For no apparent reason, Honda was still putting tape decks in their lower end models back in 2004. Well, come to think of it, there was a reason - so they could try charging us 600 dollars to upgrade to a CD player. Or else to convince us to upgrade to the EX model that had the CD player included (which would have been a few extra thousand dollars, in which case that should have been one heck of an audio system). But we couldn't afford either option, so we've been driving around sticking cassette tapes into our radio, just like I'm sure those pioneers did in their covered wagons. Just try explaining the concept of a cassette tape to kids these days. Turn it over? Huh? Rewind? Auto reverse? How retro can you get?

And just to prove that I am not a complete sound system ignoramus, I'll let you know that I made sure that Best Buy is installing the cable that will make our new car stereo IPod compatible. Not that we own an IPod. But it's best to be prepared...in another 3 years, who knows? Compact discs may be on their way out.

Anyone need some old cassette tapes?

Beach Trip - Sept 2005

Boy, did it feel good to get out of town for a couple of days! And the kids didn't even notice we were gone (ba-da-dum). But seriously, folks, just a short(?) 3-hour drive and we left those blood-sucking mosquitoes (whoops, redundant) behind. It was worth the $100 in gasoline (2 vans, remember?). We were relieved to find that our accommodations were decent. We had reserved, sight unseen, a 3-bedroom, 2-bath trailer on a National Guard base for only $60 a night (your tax dollars at work - thanks!); so we were a tad apprehensive as to what we were going to find when we got there. Good beds, clean bathrooms, complete kitchen - well, almost complete. As we were sitting around the table eating our lunch, one of the children asked, "Hey, where's the dishwasher?" Larry didn't miss a beat - "You're looking at them," he replied.

The beach was great. The surf on Monday was so high that none of the children could get beyond the first set of breakers, which suited me just fine. Rachel was repeatedly knocked over by the waves, but she would bounce right back up again like one of those blow-up punching clowns we used to play with as kids. It was very windy, so it reminded me of Newport - particularly of Larry's Reserve Unit BBQ where we had to keep chasing down the tops of our hamburger buns as they blew off our plates. Ah, fond memories...

But I digress. I noticed a woman about a quarter-century older than me staring at us as we arrived and set up all our beach paraphernalia. I figured we had ruined her day and she'd get up and move, but she stayed to talk. Turns out she had raised 6 kids with the same age spacing as ours, but her youngest is 25 now. I'm not quite sure if she was getting nostalgic or if she stuck around to remind herself how glad she is that they're all grown-up.

The second day, we drove a few miles up the road to a state park beach - it was all natural (sand dunes, no buildings), but with bathrooms - who could ask for more? We saw porpoises (dolphins?) swimming just offshore, and we were jumping up and down and yelling and pointing to show them to the kids. Everyone else on the beach was a local, as it was the day after Labor Day, and we realized that they were looking at us funny, so we settled down. After a few hours the baby was fussy, so I took her back to our trailer early and left Larry to gather up all the beach stuff and shower/de-sand five kids. I would have felt guilty, had I not done it myself all the time 2 summers ago in Newport. It's payback time, amigos!

I can be unbelievably petty at times.

Larry took the kids out boating Tuesday afternoon. There was a huge salt-water pond on base and we could rent a rowboat for a mere $3 an hour (again, your tax dollars at work). There was also a playground next to the pond where Larry attempted to injure himself by showing the kids that he could do a flip on the rings. Brian told him he was too old to do that. My thoughts, exactly. Disability insurance is expensive, you know.

We packed up the cars Wednesday morning for the return trip (by the way, both going and returning, we hit the road at 9:50 AM - we figure that must be our set point for departures) and we couldn't understand why Rachel was so anxious to get in the van. Turns out no one had explained to her that we were going home. So, after several hours of riding and, I guess, great anticipation, she burst into tears when she realized that our final destination was not, in fact, the beach.

There's no place like home.