(Not your usual) Vacation Photo Album - Jersey Shore edition

As we do every year, dear daughter and I headed to the New Jersey Shore to spend a week with Grandma and Grandpa, aunts, uncles and cousins.  This album includes some of my favorite shots, and while not exactly the family photo album and vacation postcards,  it somehow tells a story about my life.

Sometimes I wonder who is that person driving that car with the adult and kiddie bikes strapped on the back.  Loaded down with luggage & groceries, sand toys & beach chairs.  Going to the beach with the masses on I-95 for that one week vacation in August - the middle class American family rite of passage.  I have an out-of-body experience when I see this picture - it's me, but it's not me, too.

Wawa!  It's a Philly thing.  An annual pit stop.  Italian hoagies (with oil & vinegar - never mayo - on an Amoroso roll), Herr's chips, TastyKake Butterscotch Krimpets.  Ice-cold Lemonade-Iced Tea.  Vacation has started.

Contemplating the "thin black line" of the horizon.  Plastics: Made in China.

And from those dark swells, a sea monster emerged.

Boardwalk Rides - more summer traditions.  I love the pop of the colors here, and more so, the adolescent boys, caught unaware - aloof & chillin'.

This is my favorite ride. I still love swings at the playground.  This ride turns swinging into flying.  Sheer joy.

I love the dock, behind the house where we stay, at all times of day, in all kinds of weather.

This year, Dear Daughter, aka The World's Newest Swimmer, summoned the courage to jump off the dock. 

Arts:  Crayola Day-Glo paint and black Sharpie marker on seashell.

Business: Entrepreneurial daughter sets up alternative to the lemonade stand, selling painted seashells to passers-by.

Philanthropy:  All proceeds are donated to a charitable cause (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia).

Another gorgeous dinner at sunset on the back porch.

Blech...

I feel like crap.  Sometimes this happens to me.  It can happen at anytime, but it often happens as August, and more so late August, hits.  I think the lack of structure and routines get to me, too.  Dear Daughter is out of school, and we're trying to fill her days.  And work does not let up.  For all my talk of lemonade, ice cream, carefree days at the beach, baseball games, grilling, and gin & tonics - it does not overcome the heat, humidity, the unannounced storms (and floods), the bugs (and the bug bites), the sweat, the sun damage to my protesting fair skin, and the general malaise I get as summer drags on and on and on.  And on.  So by this time of year, I'm just over it.  Done.  Thank you very much.

Maybe I'd like summer more if I spent a long stretch in a cabin, on a lake, sitting on the porch, reading, writing, cooking, going for a swim - two, three, four times a day...to the floating dock about 100 meters offshore.   And skinny dipping at night, floating on my back looking at the sea of stars above, picking out a constellation or two.  

I had a summer like that.   Two summers, in fact - on Lake Spitfire in the Adirondacks.  Skinny dippin', constellation pickin',  floatin' dock and all.  I was a teenager - sixteen and seventeen years old, joining a family I used to babysit for.    My teenage boyfriend and I wrote long love missives to each other lamenting the weeks apart, and making heated plans for a torrid reunion in the fall..  The memories are vivid - over twenty years later.  There was no access by car - only boat, and I had access to the Boston Whaler to get from our cabins to the main dock through the channel over to Upper St. Regis.  I suppose there were bugs there - but I don't remember them.  I do know as summer went on, it was cool enough to light a fire in the fireplace at night.  And on my late summer swims, I nearly froze my ass off - but skinny-dipped anyway - shivering - because I knew that summer nights were drawing to a close.   I love swimming, and I love skinny dipping even more (and just wish there were more real opportunities to do so).

I think these were the best summers of my life.  Or at least when I want to conjure up an image of peace, tranquillity, contentment  - my perfect place - I think of there and then, or even There and Now.

August in Paris

Apparently, I'm trying to emulate the French by taking off the month of August.  Dog Days of August as we say here.  In any case, I'm not writing much lately.  Be back soon!

Sunday Summer Lunch

Today, my Francophone friends came over for a lovely Sunday afternoon visit during their Stateside vacation.  They moved back abroad from DC two years ago, and I miss them dearly.  But we picked up immediately with good food and conversation, and the three girls played wonderfully together, so the adults could have our talks and laughs.

The composed Salade Nicoise was both delicious and beautiful - with it's summertime tomatoes and green beans from the Farmer's Market; new potatoes with a snappy dijon vinaigrette and chives from my herb garden, tuna mixed with a bit of olive oil, salt, and parsley - also from the garden- and briny black and green olives.  I had picked up a good multigrain bread at the bakery - seeds and raisins - spread with sweet cream butter.  Wonderful.