Except that it's not. My immediate boss is on vacation this week so the pace will be lesser than usual. Which is completely okay with me. It lets me ease into the week and ramp up almost at leisure. Two whole weeks before me where I do not have to travel beyond the confines of my office. My parents are visiting this coming weekend; we are their getaway and they're going to bum around Indy while we work. But again, that's welcome. I know they will have something perking in the crock pot for when we get home.
This year's beach house vacation was a great success. They are always great experiences but this one blessed us with a great house about 200 steps from the lakeshore, wonderful fellowship with our friends-turned-family, and weather to suit everyone's tastes. And a lot of wine, cured meats, and cheeses.
We are crafting our beach house traditions a little bit each year. The routines create a feeling of familarity and comfort; without one element, the beach experience is incomplete. For instance, as soon as we arrive, the boyz drop the girls off at the beach house, pick our bedrooms, and unload all the luggage and gear. The girls stay back (okay, cracking the week's first bottle of vino) and unpack, settling the house. The guys head to the store and stock us up on beautiful steaks, seafood, and enough gourmet meats, cheeses, and olives to cause immediate, irreversible heart damage.
We open up the week with a stellar dinner and if possible, a beach bonfire that night.
Each morning, I'm always first or second to rise. It's always me or Mr. Vera. Mrs. Vera and Jack always sleep until 9:30 or 10; they come staggering out of their respective rooms, glasses on, grappling for the nearest coffee pot. We sit and share the space until someone says, "Well, is it beach time?" Then the girls usually go to the beach first and the boys join us a little while later. I'm always the one who has to go to the bathroom first, a few hours later, so when I return to the beach house, I usually make us a munchy lunch of crackers, meat, cheese, little sandwiches, carrots/hummus, etc. We sit in our beach chairs, reading our books, looking up to share funny quotes or stories from our books, or just to share random memories from beach vacations past.
We sit out there until about 5pm (sometimes later...one day this week, we stayed out until 7:30). We go in and each shower and then begin dinner preprarations. We rarely eat out while up at the beach house. Why do so when it's so much more fun to pour a lovely chardonnay while cutting up veggies?Why drive somewhere and eat a subpar cheeseburger when our houses always have fully-stocked kitchens? After some fantastic eats, we will either retire to the adirondack chairs and bonfire in our yard or to the beach for sunset.
And if it rains, we hit the wineries nearby to stock up for the coming year. We no longer do the wine tastings; we purchase a bottle and head out to the gorgeous decks overlooking peaceful brooks and ponds. And yes, we have our regular tables and seats at the wineries. I think they are starting to remember us.
That's pretty much the routine. Except that this year, a few moments really stood out to me.
Our house this year had the bonfire pit in the front "yard." It wasn't really a yard but the area in front of the house was surrounded by hostas and tall zebra grass so it felt private. Once we fogged the plants for bugs, it was quite nice. One particular night, after a long beach day, we chose to forego sunset and stay up at the house, at the fire pit. We were listening to Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, it was a chilly evening for a cool front had gone by and unleashed some serious waves - so we could hear the waves from our chairs, and if I closed my eyes, it could have been 1940. The area has not changed since the beach community was constructed in the 1920's and 30's and time really does slow there. Ray Charles' "Georgia" or Ella's "Summertime" transports all of us back in time, to a simpler time when life wasn't rushing by at such a dizzying, frantic pace. The crashing waves provided a stellar backdrop for our bonfire, the lake breeze cooling us just enough to require sweatshirts. It also felt like fall, which wasn't a totally unsettling feeling. I was feeling wonderful as long as I could sit in that chair.
Another moment occurred at that same front bonfire area. Vera and I were sitting out there, just chilling after our showers as the boys cooked us dinner. [On the menu was beach house po' boys. Try it sometime...start with raw jumbo shrimp and after de-seeding it, cut a jalapeno long-way. Put the jalapeno slice where the vein of the shrimp was. Then wrap the whole thing in bacon and secure with a toothpick. Then grill until both the shrimp and bacon are done. After browning the insides of a sour dough bun on the grill, melt habanero Havarti on the bun and then add the de-toothpicked shrimp. Whip up a Sriracha aioli and you will have a happy tum-tum. Trust me.] But as we sat there, relaxing, our bizarre neighbors came and went, without even acknowledging us. They were all extremely skinny and we decided, unhappy. They ignored us several times and so we dubbed them the "angry elves" from the South Pole. It became quite funny because when one of us would spot a neighbor on the beach, we would ask, "hey, is that an elf?" That whole thing ushered in some quotes from "Elf" that quickly defined this beach house as the great 1920's craftsman house with the angry elves next door.
We had several fabulous beach days but the last one was probably the best. We logged 9 hours on the beach that day. It was hot, so we played catch with a football in the shallow waves. We went for walks down the beach, dreaming of owning one of those grand lakefront properties (for both the summer views and the majestic winter storms). At precisely 4:35 p.m., our beach neighbor (not an elf) pulled a bottle of cold, crisp white wine from one of their coolers. Vera looked at me and said, "we need that wine." After a quick google search, we found that the closest neighborhood shop closed in 25 minutes. So we hightailed it, on a "code wine" to get to the store before it closed. We were succesful, returning to the beach a little while later with cold white wine of our own and some beer for the guys. It was then that we dragged our beach chairs down to the water's edge and enjoyed our beverages with the tiny waves gently crashing on our feet and calves. The sun glittered on the water, like diamonds. Others took their chairs out to the shallow sandbar and set up camp in 8-12 inches of water. Kids played around us while adults taught them how to skip rocks. It was an ideal beach scene. None of us wanted to leave and that ended up being our 7:30 p.m. night. And we only left because scary clouds were building to the west. We probably would have sat there all night. It was okay, though; even though our sunset bonfire was rained out (by a ferocious storm, I might add), we shared our Last Supper in the safety of the beach house's dining room. The Last Supper is where we eat all the leftovers in a grand, holiday-esque feast. Nothing really flows and dishes come out in courses. But man, is it good.
Beach life is good. As much as I wish I could take 2-3 months off each summer to spend them by the Lake Michigan shore, a week is enough to reset my bearings, breathe a bit, and recharge for the job that I love and feel very (very) fortunate to have. The Yankee "Dunegrass" candle also came home with me so whenever I need to have a "beach house moment," all I need to do is put on some Louis and Ella, light the Dunegrass candle, and grill up a beach house po' boy.
Beach house moments are all such wonderful blessings.
Here's to the summer, to the beach, and to lifelong memories.
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