Down the Shore - 2009

We're heading back down to our old haunt, Rehoboth Beach Delaware, for our annual outing. This year we are officially four, with various and sundried drive-by couch-surfers who'll be crashing with us throughout the week.

Here we are:



Just kidding. This is an old snap of the beach patrol in Dewey, the next beach town south of Rehoboth.

Not that I've been very good about posting lately but I'll probably be even worse between now and August 8th, when we return.

Stay out of trouble while your father and I are away and we'll bring you a nice, big box of Dolle's Salt Water Taffy and a stuffed bear from one of the boardwalk arcades.

And keep out of the liquor cabinet.

Love,

Mom

Inda Gude Ol Sommer Stein

Today's title refers to a line I heard on a show called "I've Got A Secret", hosted by one Gary Moore (Thomas Garrison Morfit) which aired on CBS-TV from 1833 until 1902. What can I tell you? It's a slow news day and my mind wanders easily these days.

But it also refers to the fact that it is summertime and I have more photos of the Fabulous Jersey Shore to post. So let's get cracking:

Here's one of the boardwalk attractions. I forget what they call it, but they strap you into a cage attached to two counterweighted cables and then launch you, straight up about 200', after which you bounce up and down, up and down, until you upchuck all the delicious Philly cheesesteaks, South Street pizza and 2 and a half pounds of pink spun sugar you scarfed down before plunking down your ten bucks to ride this sadistic monstrosity.







Looks like fun, huh?











Next up we have food.









and more food:













and touring beautiful Cape May:

























And, finally, no trip to the Jersey shore would be complete without losing your shirt at some cockamamie game of chance.





Maybe more tomorrow...

Wildwood Nights!

Here's the view of the ocean from the boardwalk. Note the half-mile hike to the water line. And that sand is not loose (actually a good thing). It's more like tightly packed wet cement. Do not attempt to cross it on a hot summer's day in bare feet. You'll wish you were dead before you're halfway to the ocean.




On the right is a piece of the 2-mile long boardwalk. Note the two "concrete runways" that run parallel to each other, with yellow outside warning stripes, the entire length of the boardwalk. You need to stay on your toes on this boardwalk. The next picture will show you why.





You and your friends will be strolling, casually, down the boardwalk when all of a sudden this pre-recorded PRONUNCIAMENTO will blare out from behind you

"WATCH THE TRAM CAR, PLEASE. WATCH THE TRAM CAR, PLEASE. WATCH THE TRAM CAR, PLEASE."

Thus scaring the crap out of you and your associates. After the first few times you do get used to it and learn a) not to walk along on the cement portion of the boardwalk where the tram car runs and b) to stand to the side and watch OTHER tourists get the crap scared out of them!

By the way, the Tramcar is a real bargain at two bucks a pop after you've spent hours schlepping up and down the boardwalk on a steamy July afternoon.


But here's the real reason one comes to Wildwood, New Jersey. It's a town out of time. It's permanently locked in the year 1959. All the drive-in joints and motels look like something out of "American Graffiti" with "space-age" designs and doo-wop motifs.




And the locals revel in it. So do the tourists.

Biggest surprise of the trip (aside from how things have changed since, oh, 1964) were the bajillions of French-Canadians who obviously have chosen the south Jersey Shore as their summer residence ("chez ete"). I heard more bad French than I did bad English last week.

And speaking of bad English, here's how we old poops whiled away our evenings, playing cutthroat games of Scrabble.





Here's a close-up of the same board:



My so-called friends are the types of people who spend the winter memorizing all the words that begin with "Q" and don't require a "U."

The bastards.

Enough for today. More photos tomorrow. If you're real nice.

I'm a Dope.

Yes, I was down the (Jersey) shore all last week and had a swell time.

Yes, I took pictures.

Yes, I uploaded them to my pc at home.

Yes, I created a slide show in PDF format which I sent to my friends who were down the shore with me.

Yes, I forgot to forward the individual pictures to me at my office email address.

Yes, I'll post some pictures ... tomorrow.

Oh, and I attended 12-Step meetings from Cape May to Avalon. It's a wonder those people manage to stay sober (just kidding -- we alkies always think that people elsewhere are clueless about recovery).

So, stay tuned.

More will be revealed.

Really.

====================================================
Addenda:

It would be a cold day in hell before I attended something called "ComicCon" or something like that in San Diego (or anywhere else, for that matter). Even so, the event is, apparently, not without it's charms.

To wit: Click HERE (warning: NSFW bespandexed nutsack on display).

We're Off!

It's been a busy week. Much too busy to have written about it until now.

Come to think of it, though, there's no time now, either.

Tomorrow morning my friends and I are off to the South Jersey Shore, to the Doo-Wop Capital of the world, Wildwood, NJ.

I had the day off to prepare and to see the nutritionist one more time before my surgery and my opthalmologist as a follow-up to my eyelid surgery in May.

There were also quick trips to Barnes & Noble to buy a new road map atlas of NJ and some magazines, and to Shop-Rite to pick up farm fresh herbs because there are no farms near Wildwood, New Jersey, here in the Garden State, where the corn is as high as an elephants eye these days.

Nor do they sell toilet paper, kleenex, toothpaste or deodorant there, either. So, of course, I must pack all of those things.

Am I crazy? YOU BET!

This is my favorite part of any vacation. Making myself nuts in advance of it. I'm actually fun to watch.

While I'm gone please try to behave yourselves, don't let the world blow up, and, if possible, kill a homophobe for Christ!

Nobody deserves it more.

I'll see you in a week and, MORE IMPORTANTLY, you will see ME in a week because I have my phabulous new digital camera with the 1gig memory card capable of holding 399 pictures.

Love to you all...

High-Class Problems

I'm in agony right now. It's a week to my 12th-Step anniversary (10 years on March 8th, thankyewverymuch) and all I can think about is:

a) where are we going to vacation this summer?

and

b) when should I have my gastric bypass?

My life never used to be full of high-class problems like these. It used to be full of high-class problems like "when the fuck is the liquor store going to open?" and "how can I get rid of all these empty scotch bottles in the middle of the night so the garbage men won't suspect me a being a drunk?"

And no, I'm not kidding. My mind really did used to think of things like that.

I found myself thinking this morning (never a good idea), during the mind-numbing bus ride into the city, about how much money I'm saving versus how much money I am putting aside for my medical FSA (flexible spending account) versus how much I am withholding for my 401-K.

Those are awfully "adult" sorts of subjects for me to be pondering at 6:20 a.m. Time was, at that hour, I was just getting home from the after-hours clubs. And SAVING money was never on my mind, only spending it. There was plenty more where that came from!

This weekend I plan to have no problems whatsoever. I'm seeing the podiatrist tomorrow morning for my quarterly inspection (all diabetics should get... and SEE... a podiatrist.) After that I've got 2 or 3 12-Step meetings planned, maybe a movie. Perhaps something with Will Ferrell? Spare me the groans, I'm entitled to some cheap laughs now and then.

I want lots of "Easy Does It" and "One Day at a Time" this weekend. Not to project the wreckage of the future or anything, but next weekend I'm going to be a friggin' basket-case.

Wildwood Nights

I didn't post anything yesterday because I was just too damned busy. End of story.

Today's title refers to a beach town in New Jersey. It's a part of my childhood. When I was little my grandmother would take me there every August for a few days (we weren't rich so week-long vacations were unheard of), around the Catholic Feast of the Assumption (August 15th) which Irish superstition holds is an auspicious day to put one's "feet into the water" to cure whatever variety of ills one has.

Nevertheless, Nana keeled over dead at 62 of a massive coronary brought on by years of drinking and smoking. But her feet were gorgeous.

Those few days every year were some of the happiest days of my childhood. I loved Wildwood, or as it's known in Philadelphia and Wilmington, "the Irish Riviera". It had a mile-long boardwalk, loaded with arcades, rides and fast-food take-outs of the disgustingly beach-front variety. For a buck or two a night (we're talking the late 50's, early 60's here) you could have a swell time, eat some pizza, ride the scary rides until you puked, ate cotton-candy, won a stuffed toy at a shooting gallery and played pinball or ski-ball until well past 11 p.m.

The last time my Nana and I went there was in 1962. I had just turned 13 and it was getting to the point where it was totally inappropriate for me to share a bedroom in one of the Irish-run bed and breakfasts there with my grandmother. Rather than cruise the boardwalk that year, I totally checked out and went to an air-conditioned movie theater on the boardwalk where I saw, in glorious CinemaScope, David Lean's ravishingly beautiful motion picture, "Lawrence of Arabia", which made an indelible mark on me. I changed a lot during that first year of puberty. I acknowledged to myself that I was gay (or queer, or different or something) and that Roman Catholicism and I were irrevocably on divergent paths from then on. I also knew that I was "okay" and that it was the religions which were fucked up.

Anyway, that August was the last time I set foot in Wildwood until about 9 years ago, when I got my first car in many decades. I drove down there on a whim one Saturday in February or March of 1999. It was cold and wet and rainy but just seeing the place made me want to come back.

And now it looks like I will. My closest friends and I are looking to spend a week there this coming July. We're looking at condo rentals now.

I hope I'm not setting myself up for some sort of disappointment.

Nose to the Grindstone

Does anyone even remember what a "grindstone" is? Or why one would want to put one's nose to it? I doubt it. I think it was used to grind flour and corn and was probably attached to a watermill. But that still leaves the nose part. What gives with that? Did all mill owners have their noses ground off as a matter of course? It sure sounds like it.

Anywho, I'm back at work and fucking off (it's lunchtime).

For the past two weeks my life was idyllic and the weather was perfect. Children laughed and never cried, dogs frolicked and never barked. Food was delicious, naps were lengthy and nary a harsh word escaped anyone's lips.

And then I arrived back at work.

It's amazing how quickly my Irish skin sheds a tan. Usually one or two showers is enough to restore my alabaster skin to the color one finds on the underside of a bottom feeding scumsucker, such as a fluke or a ray. It's also amazing how quickly my serenity and peace of mind can be sucked right out of me by bottom feeding, scumsucking, lawyers.

Let's see, you already know about "Sicko" and Tammy Faye (God rest her soul!). I know I promised to give you all the lascivious details of my adventures in Provincetown and Rehoboth but, to be honest, there's not much to tell. I got cruised by some twink at a tea dance in P'town, and that was it.

I have been letting my hair grow and I've been gassing it back in a modest imitation of Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko in "Wall Street." A lot of folks admire it. A lot of folks just stare at it. I don't care, though, because I've reached the age of eccentricity.

I'm a little rusty at this, two weeks of no internet access, no e-mail and no blogging have left my writing skills even worse off than they usually are.

Therefore, in a vain attempt to put closure to this (because I'm being harkened by a lawyer to do something mindless and meaningless), let me just say that it's time for me to get back to work (HEY! Maybe that's what "nose to the grindstone" means!!!)

Schools' Out Forever

Alice Cooper hit the nail right on the head.

Tomorrow morning, at 8:30 (ish) a.m., I'll be hitting the road for Cape Cod. I have to stop in EnWhyCee to pick up my college roommate and oldest, OLDEST, dearest friend. Then we get to make the six hour trek out to the easternmost point in Massachusetts for a week of sun and fun!

I'm really looking forward to it.

Our hosts, the Baltimoreans (Baltimorons?) are heading up there today to make sure the house is aired out and that everything is in it's place, prior to the arrival of the Royal Principessas.

Last year we had a blast. The high point was the half day we spent aboard the Portuguese Princess on a whale-watching trip out into the ocean off Provincetown. We could've sworn that the whales had been trained. They came right up to the side of the ship and put on quite a show for us for the better part of an hour. They were magnificent beasts and clearly enjoyed showing off for the mammals on the boat.

I'm not sure we'll be able to top that this year, but we really go more for each other's company than for the "sightseeing", even though we do manage to get some of that done, too.

We're only going for a week this year, which is probably about the right amount of time for a vacation to Cape Cod. Don't get me wrong, I do like the place, but I have other places to visit and people to see this year.

A week from tomorrow I'll return my friend to New York and head on down to Jersey for the night. Next Sunday morning I'll get up and drive another 3 hours SOUTH to the Delaware shore to spend a few days with my sister and her family. They have a beach house in a very nice location, between the resort towns of Dewey Beach and Rehoboth.

After 3 days of that I'll head BACK to New Jersey for yet another night and then, finally, head out to the very easternmost point of the North Fork of Long Island to spend a few days in the weekend home of friends of mine from New York.

Ergo sum, this my final post for awhile. I may or may not squeeze one in a week from tomorrow or possibly on the following Wednesday, but there are no guarantees.

And feel free to shoot me if I ever complain about being unloved again.

Adios, Amigos & Amigas!

What the Hell is Going On Here?

It must be a full moon. Yesterday was a zoo around here (old 12-Step program saying, "Just because the monkey is off my back doesn't mean that the circus has left town!").

For several days there have been pile-ups or broken down vehicles or gawd knows what else causing hours long delays on the inbound and outbound commute. This morning it was "an event" that left a residue of about 12,000 pounds of shredded, pink, R-13, fiberglas insulation blowing around the turnpike like some kind of a Queer Version of the tumbleweed in the opening credits of "Gunsmoke." (see: 1950's, old queens)

We never did see what had caused it. Perhaps a Home Depot delivery truck had inexplicably exploded during the morning rush. Whatever. We were an hour late getting into midtown.

Then there are the whackos at work. One associate I work for, Mr. Candidate for Rehab, went ballistic on me yesterday because I didn't skip lunch and work on his document, instead. Apparently that permanently negatively impacted his social life. If he's depending on me for a viable social life, he's in deep shit. I didn't bother to tell him that I no longer "do" guilt-trips. But if I ever do tell him it'll be preceeded by "Look, Sparky, if you think I don't care about you, you're right!"

Still, my Sponsor wants me to make nice with others, so I spent all day yesterday trying to placate him. Which is why I never got around to posting something (which I usually do during my lunch hour, which I generally spend at my desk.)

I'm just glad it's Friday. I can handle crazy as along as it's of my own making, which it usually is on weekends. Maybe I'll see "Sicko" this weekend. Or "Ratatouille." Or even the Fantastic Four sequel. Something. Anything.

I need a vacation. And a week from tomorrow I'm leaving on one. I don't know how I'm going to handle being away for 2 weeks, without a laptop from which to blog and surf the web. I guess I'd better start shopping for internet cafes on Cape Cod and down in Rehoboth NOW.

I'll just die if I can't read all my favorite blogs every day. I might have to read a book or something.

God forbid.