......

MIDWEEK MISCELLANY:

This morning I was offered a chance to sit for a while by myself in a small room with very little of entertainment value to be seen. It was for this reason, Reader Dear,  that I somewhat spontaneously decided to became a scholar of the science of vision. How fortunate for me that the sole decoration on the walls was a framed anatomical diagram of the human eye!

I wish I could tell you, Dear Reader, that I'm well on my way to a doctoral degree.  However, my ophthalmologist  showed up a bit too soon.  She wanted to peer into the human eyes in my very own head! It kind of foiled my aspirations.

Well, then, lo and behold, later in the day I was ushered into another tiny room and given a second chance!  Alas, I realized right away that I would have to switch my field of study from ophthalmology to cardiology.  I really wasn't sure, Dear Reader, if I had the heart to start over!

(The human part said Well, maybe.  But the bovine piece just said Moo.)

However!  In addition to a detailed chart on the wall, there was also a very nifty model of the human heart!  It's what swayed me to plunge once again into human anatomy studies.

Had my cardiologist not briskly strode in when he did, to study the still-beating organ in my very own chest, who's to say how soon I'd be stealing his patients from  him?!

.....

 In regards to Halloween, Dear Reader, I followed the same old routine.  I bought a (smallish) bag of chocolate candy.  At six p.m. I ate two pieces and turned on the porch light. At six-thirty, my yard man  showed up (he was dressed  like a horse man), and he ate two pieces, as well.

We sat down to our supper and debated the likelihood of getting any trick-or-treaters at our door, and the possibility of Romney becoming president.  The odds, we decided, were about the same in each case. 

At eight p.m., Dear Reader, I turned off the porch light.
......

.......

SO THEN: 

I feel, Reader Dear, as though I've performed a public service to the folks in my area!
I OVER-PREPPED for Sandy!  In a perverse way, I knew (I just knew) that if I were to do enough nail-biting, and scurry around enough, and work diligently enough at attempting to provide for heat and light and water and food for days and days without electricity, THEN Sandy would relax, not thrash about so much, and leave my whole neighborhood  (if not the whole eastern seaboard) unscathed!

It's why I bought the headlamp, the batteries, the matches, the bananas (well, I guess the bananas were just an impulse buy, to be honest)








It's why I filled every pitcher and pitcher-like container I could find with potable water (Really, Mr. Webster, "potable" was the best you  could do?!)

It's why I scrounged for buckets, and every bucket-like container I could find, and filled with water to make our pots "potable"  (Ahem, Reader Dear, if you know what I mean)

It's why I couldn't leave well-enough alone (well, I did get that recorded message from the electric company, warning me that power could be lost for up to a week!)  Why at 3:35 in the afternoon,  I drove through the already inclement weather to the Dollar General Store and  purchased a Sandy-sized blue plastic tub and a few extra buckets (The wind picked up, Reader Dear, as I wielded that cumbersome load to the car) 

Then, too, it's why I cleared from the freezer all partial loaves of bread, and tins of coffee, and odds and ends that really didn't have to stay frozen, and filled umpteen plastic bags with water to make chunks of ice  (I was already mourning the possible loss of my chopped red peppers [why I scampered back again and again to add more would-be ice]).



It's why I begged of the yard man to stop by an Amish store and bring me some oil for my small brass lamp.  ("There's some left in a bottle I've got here.  It's called, 'ultra-pure smokeless and odorless candle and lamp oil, ninety-nine percent pure liquid wax paraffin'.  So get that, okay?" I instructed.  "But don't get too big of a bottle!* ) 

It's why, Reader Dear, I had to check facebook every fifteen minutes to keep an eye on Sandy as she whirled into the Outer Banks and the Tidewater area of Virginia. 

 And...goodness me, I was nervous as a cat (it might have been the two cups of coffee)

Just before going to bed, I said to the yard man, "Can't you bring in some wood to stack on the hearth, just in case?" 
("No!" he replied, "It's right there on the porch!")

That, Reader Dear,  was my final humanitarian effort to save the east coast from Sandy
(much as I prevented a total collapse of the nation during Y2K).

.......

Pin a medal on me!  I woke this morning to calm and quiet.  No wind.  Not much rain.  Just a cloudy sky.  Hardly any real damage in the county (well, none that I know of at this time).  You're welcome, Reader Dear!**

**I am really very sorry, New York and New Jersey. And all the people without power everywhere.  And those who had flooding and damage. And great loss.  (I did my best.)

......

*(He brought an enormous bottle of Patio Torch Fuel.  "They said it wouldn't smell very good," he said, "but at least it will work.")
Give him some credit.

......

AT THE TAIL END OF LAST WEEK I was busy preparing for house guests.  I didn't have time for absorbing the news.  I knew that current events would just have to be what they were, without me knowing.  And the future would keep on arriving, full of surprises, whether or not I had a glimmer of what it would look like!

So Friday evening  I was scanning Facebook when I saw that Wife of Only Son had posted a comment:  "Working Sunday, during Sandy, kind of worried about leaving Justin and Art at home."  In my loosey-goosey way (I'm blushing, Reader Dear) I interpreted it to say "...Don't want to leave them alone with Sandy."

WHO the HECK, I wondered, is SANDY?! Why are my son and grandson spending time with her?

Saturday I was occupied with birthday activities and such.   References were made to a storm, but I paid little heed.  Then late in the day, someone let slip the name "Sandy" again. Ah, ha!  I heard details of the super-monster storm that was due.

Sunday morning--that's when I thought the storm was moving into my area--two a.m., to be exact.  I can no longer tell you, Dear Reader, where I got that detailed bit of info, but it wasn't correct!  Nope, I got up on Sunday morning and thought that Sandy must have fizzled.

By the time I read the Sunday paper headlines "Calm Before A Roaring Superstorm", I had already bid my house guests goodbye, attended church, gone to an Ethiopian restaurant for lunch with friends, and talked about Sandy extensively.  "What?! You haven't made any preparations?" My friends across the table, eating their yellow lentils and injera, asked me incredulously.  

"Nope," I said.  "And there aren't even any matches in the house," I replied.  "I used the last one a couple days ago."

Then I got nervous.

 
I left the restaurant and headed for the Kmart store to buy matches.  And while I was there, I looked for a flashlight.  "All we have left are on that little cart!" a saleswoman told me.  Glancing over the motley and limited assortment of penlights and little cigarette lighter-light combos, I saw nothing to be of great aid in a hurricane.  But then I came upon a man who had a  battery-powered headlamp in his cart.  "Where did you find that, may I ask?"  I asked (without waiting to find out if he would give me permission).  
"Oh, it was back there...in 'gifts' somewhere," he replied as he waved his hand toward the nether regions of the store.  
I spent a good five minutes searching, and ended up back at the penlight cart.  Amazingly, the man with the headlamp was still there, looking over the paltry offerings.  "Uh, I couldn't find any headlamps back there," I said to him.  "Do you know, was there another one?" 
"No,there wasn't," he said, and perhaps it was only my imagination, but he seemed to be asking himself why he'd withheld this bit of data previously.
He paused.  "But here, you can have this one," he offered.  "I think I'm going to get something else."  He handed me the headlamp and a pack of batteries.  "And here are the batteries, if you need them."
 
Reader Dear, I felt it was a very good omen!  I went home and filled the bathtub with water.  I saved the Sunday crossword puzzle to do by the light of my nifty headlamp.  I stayed abreast of the latest tales of Sandy, who seemed to be dragging her feet.

Then, when I was getting ready for bed, I noticed the water in the tub had drained away!
I felt it was a very bad omen!

...to be continued, Reader Dear, if Sandy gives her go-ahead.

.......

......

DUE TO THE FACT that some very special members of the Little Actor's out-of-town fan club were in the area for the weekend, there was an early birthday celebration for him today.  The festivities included all the customary activities one might expect at a three-year-old's party--opening presents, playing with the new toys, eating birthday cake, planting garlic*.

How convenient, Viewer Dear, I've got the story in pictures!

Order of events was a bit out of the ordinary, as the garlic-planting came first, and the birthday cake was the grand finale, squeezed in just prior to the birthday boy's bedtime:



*I did say, did I not, Reader Dear, one  might expect such a party activity; there's always the possibility (It just so happens, I did not expect it;  it was kind of a surprise to me!)
.....

......
THURSDAY'S GALLIMAUFRY:

I MADE a trip to the thrift shop today, to donate a bagful of un-necessities.
As I was leaving, I saw a group of youngsters hanging out.  Two of them were animatedly doing "Rock, Paper, Scissors."  Wow, I thought, who needs expensive, cumbersome, complicated, ridiculous, drawn-out, tiresome, presidential campaigns filled with rhetoric and binders full of women?!  Just let the two candidates duke it out with a few rounds of "Rock, Paper, Scissors"!



 ......

 Ever since I let my Yard Man know that any red peppers he would bestow upon me from his garden would be highly appreciated, I've been finding gifts on the porch! 

The first time this happened, I was ecstatic.
The second time, I danced around for joy.
The third time, and the fourth, and the fifth--I chortled to myself over the crimson wealth.

I was eating the peppers whole, as one might eat an apple.  And stir-frying them.  And roasting.  And loading them, sliced, onto salads.

By the sixth time he left me an unannounced helping of red veggies, I wasn't quite as dazzled.
But I still found it hard to share. I chopped some  up to add to the frozen bagfuls that have slept in the freezer since last year.

It wasn't until the seventh or eighth time I found peppers on the porch that I started re-gifting.
Today the yard man brought me six more red peppers.  "This is it!" he said.  "There will be no more."

What?! Over so soon?!  The season was short, (red) and sweet!
......
Dear Reader, there's another season that I thought would be ended by now--the Season of the Road Crew!  The roads near my house have been sporting flagmen and machinery since early spring.  Many, many are my chances to watch workers in action (or earnestly idling, as the case may be). 

Tonight, impressively, they were working late!
(I think it's a sign of the end times)
......

......

NOTHING TO EAT OR DRINK after midnight, I was told by the lab.  They wanted to check my bi-species blood.  But when I called to find out the lab's hours yesterday, the woman on the other end of the line instructed me to drink a lot of water in advance of their vampire-like activity.  "You may  also have black coffee," she said.
"Coffee?!" I crowed.  "Wonderful!  It's my new addiction."
I drank two cups on the way to the lab.
The weather was so warm and fine, I opened the sun roof on the car, turned up the radio, and with that coffee coursing through my soon-to-be-seized blood, I felt ready to face the needle.

In the parking lot I found beauty in the half-dead hedge of greenery, and greeted every stranger with a great big smile.  Heck, I nearly clicked my heels. I was feeling that optimistic.

Then I marched in and told the lab technician, "Use my right arm.  The left one had a vein torn once by someone trying to draw blood.  It was hugely swollen from wrist to shoulder, I had to deal with it for weeks, and it has never been the same!"   She grimaced, and carefully stuck my right arm  with the needle.  I'm happy to say, Reader Dear, everything flowed smoothly! Ah, what a gift.  Leaving the lab,  I was still floating on my high, and supposed that the clouds were pointing the way to the rest of the frabjous day!

I went to my park (Though I didn't say it, Dear Reader, it was much later in the day when I went to the  park.  It was still frabjous, however.  Still beautiful!)  And I had a ball!  Yes, it's true.  Someone had left it for me in the middle of the large grassy area!  I looked around to make sure it wasn't a gift for someone else, and then I had to kick it a time or two.
                                






Speaking of gifts, there was also the brilliant red leaf in the afternoon sun.


(I don't like to bring it up, Reader Dear, but there was one gift I rejected, and now I'm living to rue it:  I did not wear my flip-flops. Flip-flops would have been fabulous on this frabjous day!*)

*I'm hoping they'll be another offer.

......

......

WILD AND BORING STORY of a landlord and a BB:
Months ago my tenant in Number 59 called to complain of a cracked window.  There was no surprise involved.  When I rented the place to him and his wife a year ago, the BB gun hole already existed.  (Curiously, the BB [mysteriously fired by an  unknown hand] had broken through just one pane of the double-pane window.) Now, due to use or abuse [how's a landlord to know?] the outside pane was in critical condition.) They wanted it fixed!

"Okay, for sure," I told him, and called the glass company to make arrangements.
"It'll save you a boatload of money if you bring us the window yourself," I was told.  "Bring it first for measurements.  We will order the glass.  Then we'll inform you when we've got the glass--it will take several weeks.  After that, you can bring the window again and have it repaired."

So, a long time ago I removed the window and hauled it to the glass company.  They measured it.  Then, when I murmured about the oh-so-great odds, the sure-to-be chances, the inevitability that this window would fall to pieces when I struggled to re-install it, they taped it up neatly for me.

Quite a long time later the glass company called to inform me they were all set to fix my window.  But by now the weather'd turned cold!
I called my tenants.  "I'll remove your window again, and have it fixed," I told them,"when a day comes along that's warm and sunny.  According to the long-range forecast, Tuesday looks good.   How about Tuesday?"
But on Tuesday, Reader Dear, it seemed to me the weather was too cold.
......
"Friday should be good," I suggested.  "There's no chance of rain, and they're saying it won't be as cold."
 Friday it rained.
......

The following week I was oh, so busy.  "Monday of next week," I told my tenants on Friday.  That's when I'll do it...unless there's bad weather."
......
Monday morning it was somewhat overcast, sun in and out.  The weather man was calling for a good  chance of afternoon thundershowers.  Nah, I thought.  I won't go today.
But at noon my tenant called me.  "What about the window?!" he asked.
"Well," I said, "They're calling for rain."
"Oh, it'll be okay," he insisted.  "We're going out for a while, but I've already removed the window.  It's here waiting for you!"
"Fine," I said.  "I'll be right over."
......
As I loaded up the window and set out for the glass company, the clouds were gray.  I drove fast.
Twenty minutes later I handed over the busted window and set out to do a little shopping.   "Come back in half an hour," the glass repairman said. 
The wind had picked up a little.  The sky had darkened.
But thirty minutes later, when I entered the shop to pick up the now like-new window, it was not yet raining.
"Here's your BB!" said the guy in the shop, after I'd paid for the work and he'd loaded up the window. He handed me the miniscule culprit.
......
As I headed out, there were raindrops and Steppenwolf spurring me on.

I drove directly and speedily toward my destination, and it soon became obvious I was racing a storm!  Well, I was born to be wild! I thought, and I pressed on the gas pedal.  Keeping a nervous eye on the windshield wipers, and picturing torrents of rain coming through an open hole where 59's window belonged, I drove like a madman (Calm down, Reader Dear. I just drove like wild).   I screeched into the parking lot, leaped from the car and collected the window.  I lugged it as hurriedly as I could up the sidewalk toward apartment 59.  Just as I reached for the knob, the clouds burst!

It rained and rained, Reader Dear.
But who cared??
I got to drive home and cross "#59 BB WINDOW REPAIR!!" off my list at last.

.......
 

......

WILD AND BORING STORY of a landlord and a BB:
Months ago my tenant in Number 59 called to complain of a cracked window.  There was no surprise involved.  When I rented the place to him and his wife a year ago, the BB gun hole already existed.  (Curiously, the BB [mysteriously fired by an  unknown hand] had broken through just one pane of the double-pane window.) Now, due to use or abuse [how's a landlord to know?] the outside pane was in critical condition.) They wanted it fixed!

"Okay, for sure," I told him, and called the glass company to make arrangements.
"It'll save you a boatload of money if you bring us the window yourself," I was told.  "Bring it first for measurements.  We will order the glass.  Then we'll inform you when we've got the glass--it will take several weeks.  After that, you can bring the window again and have it repaired."

So, a long time ago I removed the window and hauled it to the glass company.  They measured it.  Then, when I murmured about the oh-so-great odds, the sure-to-be chances, the inevitability that this window would fall to pieces when I struggled to re-install it, they taped it up neatly for me.

Quite a long time later the glass company called to inform me they were all set to fix my window.  But by now the weather'd turned cold!
I called my tenants.  "I'll remove your window again, and have it fixed," I told them,"when a day comes along that's warm and sunny.  According to the long-range forecast, Tuesday looks good.   How about Tuesday?"
But on Tuesday, Reader Dear, it seemed to me the weather was too cold.
......
"Friday should be good," I suggested.  "There's no chance of rain, and they're saying it won't be as cold."
 Friday it rained.
......

The following week I was oh, so busy.  "Monday of next week," I told my tenants on Friday.  That's when I'll do it...unless there's bad weather."
......
Monday morning it was somewhat overcast, sun in and out.  The weather man was calling for a good  chance of afternoon thundershowers.  Nah, I thought.  I won't go today.
But at noon my tenant called me.  "What about the window?!" he asked.
"Well," I said, "They're calling for rain."
"Oh, it'll be okay," he insisted.  "We're going out for a while, but I've already removed the window.  It's here waiting for you!"
"Fine," I said.  "I'll be right over."
......
As I loaded up the window and set out for the glass company, the clouds were gray.  I drove fast.
Twenty minutes later I handed over the busted window and set out to do a little shopping.   "Come back in half an hour," the glass repairman said. 
The wind had picked up a little.  The sky had darkened.
But thirty minutes later, when I entered the shop to pick up the now like-new window, it was not yet raining.
"Here's your BB!" said the guy in the shop, after I'd paid for the work and he'd loaded up the window. He handed me the miniscule culprit.
......
As I headed out, there were raindrops and Steppenwolf spurring me on.

I drove directly and speedily toward my destination, and it soon became obvious I was racing a storm!  Well, I was born to be wild! I thought, and I pressed on the gas pedal.  Keeping a nervous eye on the windshield wipers, and picturing torrents of rain coming through an open hole where 59's window belonged, I drove like a madman (Calm down, Reader Dear. I just drove like wild).   I screeched into the parking lot, leaped from the car and collected the window.  I lugged it as hurriedly as I could up the sidewalk toward apartment 59.  Just as I reached for the knob, the clouds burst!

It rained and rained, Reader Dear.
But who cared??
I got to drive home and cross "#59 BB WINDOW REPAIR!!" off my list at last.

.......
 

......

YESTERDAY MORNING I ATTENDED church.  After the service, I got a gift of lovely red dahlias and golden goldenrod.  (This was not, Reader Dear, another birthday surprise.  And were you  beginning to ever so slightly tire of hearing birthday stories, such that this disclosure  caused you to sigh with relief, I do not judge you harshly!)

The giver of this gift was a woman who had harvested all of her extensive garden-full of flowers to prevent Jack Frost from snatching for himself.  She had then carried armloads of them to church and offered them freely to whomever would take.  So I gathered a handful and thanked her kindly.

It wasn't until some time had passed, and the flower-giver had left the premises, that I realized in addition to the flora, she'd gifted me with a bit of fauna!

I decided to name this little creepy-crawly creature, and keep it as a pet.




 But Bertha crept away while I was lunching at a restaurant with friends.
(Her fate is to date unknown.)
......

......

I FOUND OUT YESTERDAY that birthday surprises can keep trickling in, sometimes in serendipitous ways!  "Want to go get pizza with us?" our First Daughter asked my yard man and me.  It was early evening and still light outside; she and our first son-in-law and the Little Actor had stopped by our house. "Sure!" I responded enthusiastically. She wanted to go to a place called Uncommon Pizza (because "normal is boring," said the advertisement she showed me [The advertisement also gave us the address, with a little map (We glanced at it, First Daughter and I)]). 

Our little group set off in our two separate cars, in a rush to get there.  But, alas. We drove carefully around the entire shopping area where we expected to find this place, and it wasn't there!
"Where is it?!" asked First Daughter through her open car window. "Don't you have the advertisement?"
"Nope," I responded through my open car window, "Don't you?"

Our two cars were idling in front of the last shop in the row of them.  It was a specialty bakery.
Hmmm.  Now what?

First Son-in-law hopped from their car.  "I'll ask!" he said.  He entered the cupcake shop.





He emerged with a box.  "They have no idea where it is, but I got us some cupcakes. They can be birthday cupcakes!" he said. "Boy, did it smell good in there!"

And about an hour later, after the yard man had whipped out his smart phone and directed us all on a peculiar three-mile path to the pizza shop, and we'd eaten the uncommonly good pizza, we devoured those fantastically non-boring birthday cupcakes purchased for me by my extraordinarily thoughtful son-in-law!
 ......

......
YESTERDAY, OF COURSE, there was the lengthy trip home from the beach.  When we pulled into the driveway, it wasn't quite dark, but sakes alive it was cold!
......
(Please jump ahead four days, Dear Reader, if you're able to do so without too much discomfort... [Because "yesterday" is now five days ago!]  And it is still cold!)  Can you believe it, just last night Jack Frost  (aka Jack the Ripper*) actually sneaked into the area!  Oh, I find it disconcerting and discomfiting and downright discombobulating to load up the car caressed by warm summery breezes, so carefree in my light cropped pants and flip-flops...and come back home to winter!! (Okay, okay.  I suppose one could call it lovely autumn weather; but just for the sake of complaint, Reader Dear, be a dear and humor me ["Twenty-eight degrees?!" I grumbled to my yard man this morning,  "It could have SNOWED!"  (and then I shuddered)])

Today was gloriously sunny, however.  And I've still got birthday card wishes splendidly adorning my kitchen counter top! That's what I was going to exclaim about four days ago--

I was going to tell you how the grand pile of cards and the package that my yard man carried in from the mailbox after we had schlepped the icebox and suitcases and bags and pillows and food and abundance of other, not-totally-necessary-but-dragged-along-nonetheless, items in from the car;
(how it) warmed the cockles of my heart (which took the edge off the unexpected chill in the air)!

I looked at that small stack of birthday mail (or at least I highly suspected it to be such), and I struck upon an idea for extending the warm fuzzy birthday feeling:  Open this mail the next morning! 

That was the plan.  But, dear me, the next morning dawned heavily gray.  It was raining.  I had mountains of laundry to do.  I opened a letter from my tenant in forty-seven (obviously non-birthday mail) which included this sentence: "If a landlord makes life so miserable for you (**) that it forces you to move, it may be considered constructive eviction which is grounds for legal action."  The neighbor man called to give me his weekly disgruntled report on the newspaper carrier, newspaper company, and condition of the Sunday News.  I had to rummage around in my closet for sweaters and shoes.  And I had a to-do list about a mile long (well, maybe just eight inches, but unbecomingly extensive). 

All day as I tried to snap out of vacation mode and plunge into life as I generally know it, I eyed the birthday mail and contemplated the opening of it. I wanted to get things crossed off my list, to deal with unpleasant duties, to have time to savor this little exercise in gift-opening.  But the gray morning turned into a gray afternoon and that stubborn list would not be whittled.  Afternoon turned into evening and I was still stumbling around accomplishing little.  Before I knew it, I was making supper and it was dark outside.

Then, as I was cleaning up the supper dishes, I suddenly turned to the yard man, "Do you want to come to my card-opening party?" I asked.  "It's starting real soon.  I might even serve refreshments!"***


......
.....
*Alas, all the pretty flowers!
**Nine years she's been my tenant; I just raised the rent.
***Ah, Reader Dear, it was worth the wait!
***

.....

...ONGOING SAGA OF THE beach birthday, in which the whole kit and kaboodle headed off to yet another place of fun and games...

followed by ten folks around a table at the Black Pelican restaurant, eating seafood...

...and drinking and talking and laughing and thinking "I'm so lucky!"  (Er...Reader Dear, I was only inside one head, I confess.

It was the same head I took back to the beach house with me, kind of swimmy with the pina colada, and the high of having so many loved ones with whom to celebrate a birthday!)

Actually, we celebrated two birthdays!
Happy Birthday, Shishe!
(Hers is four days later,
and so much
bigger
than
mine!)
......

......

AND NOW, READER DEAR, we've come to today!
We are one day past the end of my year-long hoopla!
It's the final day of the ocean stay, and the weather's turned stormy,
but that doesn't prevent me from moving on into this year's opening ceremonies with gusto!

(It helps, of course, that I'm on vacation! That my sister who lives next door has rigged up swinging birthday wishes!  There's also the fact that I get birthday greetings from sweet little VIPs!



And consider this, Reader Dear:   I get to walk on the beach with my daughter who's got the baby bump.  We walk to the Avalon Pier, where fun can be had at the drop of a quarter [or three or four].

And that's not all, of course... 

 

                                             ...oh, beachbirthdayblatherings, no!)*

......

*You'll hear more tomorrow

......

IN CASE YOU SUPPOSE, Reader Dear, that we've spent the great majority of our time (my yard man and I and our lovely descendants plus the tie-ins) simply eating while we're here at the ocean, let me hasten to quell that notion!   We've been quite actively traipsing back and forth to the beach!

And today, Dear Reader, we took a trip to Jennette's Pier, where swims the wondrous moray eel!

.

There are lots of aquatic toys in the wondrous gift shop, too,

and lots of great photo ops!                               

















It also appears it's a fine place for fishing!






But, wow, Reader Dear, it wasn't until we were leaving that I realized how this pier may be just the spot for elevating one's view of a wedding!

......

......

.....

BREAKFAST HERE AT the beach house was beautifully well-rounded, though my personal options were somewhat limited by my late arrival at the bakery box.

Our next meal came in a bag (or two), and was awfully claw-full!  A lull occurred in our frenzy of eating while my yard man ran to the "We Got Your Crabs" store (for more).

Meal preparation was quite to my liking, though marvelously mystifying and messy! 

 

                                         Then clean-up was, oh, so simple!

......

......

WOKE UP THIS MORNING, I could hear the ocean!  Of course, there was a good reason for this, my Reader Dear--the Atlantic Ocean is only about a hundred yards away from this house where I slept.

If you think that's exciting...both my little celebrities are

enjoying these five days in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, with me!

I'm so busy relaxing!
Wow.











......