Water, Water Everywhere And Not A Drop To Drink

I have it on good authority that Thanksgiving Eve is a pretty widely celebrated event (unlike Sunday Funday – Hello, Jersey!) but I think beach people do it up right.  We’ve got boardwalk bars and theoretically, no bennies to behold, as it is not appropriate wife beater-donning weather.  You and everyone you wish you went to high school with go out and get merry.  Then, to your parents’ dismay and/or relief, you crash on someone’s couch and end up at home just in time for an absurdly early dinner feast.  Or at least that’s how it “should” be.  This year on Thanksgiving Eve, I slept in my own bed, and spent the [hangover-free] next day baking apple pie.  Seaside hardly saw any of the familiar faces, let alone the used-to-be-familiar ones, who usually show up on this venerated bar night.  Maybe we can blame the economy.  Or the fact that we’re beginning to grow up?

On Saturday, I celebrated two of my friends’ birthdays with dinner and a party, which definitely made up for a lackluster Wednesday.  Just about everyone I missed on T.E. was there.  As I scanned the room full of good-looking guests, I realized that the couch looked like a scene from 1080 Snowboarding: 4 or 5 guys with scruffy facial hair and beanies lounged with beer cans resting on their Billabong-clad knees.  These guys have lived in Hawaii and Costa Rica and talk of returning, and oddly enough, dreaming of traveling to these paradises made me feel like I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

The morning after:

Blown-over sand dunes = forced rule breaking (if you want to access the beach).