Our beach party was small this year, just five of us, my family of four plus my mother. And for the first time since Noah was born, there were no minors present. We ranged in age from eighteen to eighty when we arrived and eighteen to eighty-one when we left.
Here’s what our all-adult group did at the beach and just after, while our country experienced nine days of twists and turns. (Ironically, while at the beach Noah and I were reading Terry Pratchett’s Interesting Times, named after the purported Chinese curse—“May you live in interesting times.”) President Biden was in Rehoboth at the same time we were, recovering from covid and contemplating his political future. It makes me a little sad to think about that. It was time for him to go, and he had a mixed record, but he did a lot of good, and it must have been hard.
Friday and Saturday: Getting There
North and I made it down to the beach by 5:15 p.m. on Saturday. It had been a long journey. Beth had left at 6 a.m. the previous morning to pick them up at camp, deliver them to a medical appointment and then home, where we were all reunited after almost two weeks, and had a dinner of homemade pizza. North always comes home from camp exhausted because they need to get up early and stay up late doing bed checks on campers, so they bowed out of meeting my mom at the airport. Shortly after dinner, though, Beth, Noah and I drove out to pick up my mom at National and dropped her off at her hotel in Silver Spring.
By mid-morning we were at her hotel again to fetch her and begin our drive to Rehoboth Beach. It took about six hours, with stops. There was almost no traffic at the bridge; in fact, most of the traffic seemed to be going the other way, which prompted my mom to tell the story of the time (when my sister and I were teens) when we were driving to the Outer Banks in heavy rain and all the traffic was going the other way and it turned out that it was because the storm was a hurricane and the islands were evacuating. There’s more to this story, involving my stepfather almost getting arrested for breaking into the closed realty’s office for the keys to our house. It’s a family favorite.
But while it was raining on and off during this drive, it was not a hurricane, and the only hardship we experienced was agonizingly slow traffic at the very end. We got to the house by 4:30. It has an interesting feature which is stone from an old lighthouse that collapsed in the 1920s is set in the brickwork of the chimney and around the front door.
Once the food was unpacked and linens distributed to all the bedrooms and bathrooms, North and I took a rainy walk to the beach. We only had one umbrella between us, and we tried to share but North ended up getting soaking wet. We were both happy to get our feet in the sand and surf, though, and to breathe sea air.
Meanwhile, Beth was doing a quick grocery shop for dinner and breakfast the next day. North and I made dinner—veggie burgers and dogs, baked beans, corn on the cob, sliced tomatoes, and watermelon. This was the day Trump was shot at the Republican convention. This was distressing news. I don’t want to live in a country where presidential elections are marked by violence against anyone, even him. (Before we left the beach, Noah reports, there were already t-shirts with the image of him with his fist up in the t-shirt shops. I missed that.)
But we were on vacation, so all five of us headed for the boardwalk, where we got frozen custard. The boardwalk was hopping, as befits a Saturday night in July, but I’d thought the rain—which had mostly stopped—might have deterred people. It was a pleasant night, though, not too hot, and we saw a rainbow on the way there. I spotted it first in a puddle and had a hard time finding it in the sky, but standing in the middle of the street, we found it, big but faint. It was easier to see in the reflection than in the sky. This seemed like it might be a good metaphor, but I’m not sure for what. Maya would probably know.
Sunday: Settling In
Sunday morning Beth and Mom did the big grocery shopping, North did a couple online modules they had to complete for school about alcohol and hazing—their Internet connection is not good at camp and they don’t have much time anyway—and I made and received calls from the realty about the fact that the house did not have hot water or any frying pans, which Noah needed to cook dinner. Once both of those problems were resolved with visits from the gas company and a realtor bearing pans, and once North had put together a potential class schedule for the fall semester and met with their advisor online, North and I went to the beach.
We got there about 2:30 and had a long swim, about an hour and half. The water was cold getting in, but pleasant once we got used to it and the waves were adequate. We saw pelicans and osprey catching fish and had a nice talk. In my opinion, the ocean is one of the best places to chat with someone. After our swim, North headed up to the house and I went to one of the boardwalk pavilions to read my book club book (The Great Mistake, a 1940s cozy mystery) in the shade for about an hour until my mom showed up and we went to sit on the sand together. She’d had something of an odyssey buying a beach chair and finding our meeting spot, but we had almost an hour to sit on the sand, watching the waves and talking. The beach is also an excellent place to talk.
Noah made dinner that night—veggie crab cakes made of chickpeas, artichokes, and hearts of palm. Beth loves these and had asked him to make them at the beach. They are quite tasty. After dinner, we watched Fancy Dance, which is very good, but heavy.
Monday: 37
Monday was Beth’s and my thirty-seventh anniversary. This is the summer anniversary, the one that commemorates our first kiss. We decided that rather than exchange gifts we’d just spend the whole day together, doing an activity of her choice in the morning and mine in the afternoon, and then we’d go to dinner.
Beth chose kayaking. We rented kayaks and explored Assawoman Bay. We saw all kinds of wildlife—egrets, geese, herons, dragonflies, a horseshoe crab, jellyfish, and mussels along the banks of an inlet. We were on the water for almost two hours. The day was sunny and warm but not oppressively hot, plus I was wet from the waist down from the water dripping off the paddles and that cooled me down. I haven’t been kayaking with Beth in a couple years—she goes frequently, so that was pleasant.
We returned to the house for lunch—Mom and the kids had gone out for Mexican, but they returned shortly after we finished eating. Our next stop was an ice cream place we’d never tried—it’s in one of the little alleys off Rehoboth Ave. I got black raspberry and Beth got cappuccino. I saw a gnome with popsicles on its hat there and photographed it for Nicole, who collects gnomes. It turned out to be the first in a series of vacation gnome pictures I sent her.
From there we went to the beach, where we rented chairs and an umbrella. This is something we don’t often do, so it felt luxurious. We read for about an hour and then stood in the surf for a while and then Beth went back to her chair while I had a brief swim before returning to our rented shade to watch the ocean.
I was people-watching, too. I spotted a young man in the surf with a glucose monitor on his arm. I thought—in his twenties and fit, probably type 1, but you never know. When he got out, he walked right by me and I wondered if he noticed my monitor and thought—in her fifties and plump, probably type 2, but you never know.
We went back to the house and showered for dinner. We went out for tapas and ordered a feast—a watermelon and berry salad on arugula, a cheese plate, ratatouille, tortilla Española, and two desserts to split—olive oil cake with berries, and a flourless chocolate torte. Everything was excellent. The waiter put a candle in the olive oil cake because it was our anniversary, which caused someone at the next table to wish me a happy birthday.
We went and sat on a bench on the boardwalk and almost immediately spotted dolphins. They weren’t going in a straight line north or south as they usually do, but circling and Beth surmised they were feeding on a school of fish. We watched them for at least twenty minutes and then took a walk on the beach in the sunset. I saw dolphins almost every day we were at the beach, but this was something else. It was a magical way to end the day, but the best part was just having a whole day devoted to spending time with each other.
And it so happened that the card I got Beth had dolphins on it. She got me one that said, “Let’s get old and weird together.” Apparently, North was with her when she bought it and opined quite firmly, “That’s the one.”
Tuesday and Wednesday: Being There
We went out to breakfast at Egg on Tuesday morning. Noah and I have worked out a system for summer breakfasts at this restaurant. I eat something high in protein at home before we leave, then we each order the lemon-blueberry crepes, and I eat half of mine and give the rest to him. I get a meal that doesn’t cause my blood sugar to spike or leave me feeling deprived, and he gets a plate and a half of crepes, which are one of his favorite foods.
Leaving the restaurant, we all strolled through the farmers’ market that’s right across the street and bought tomatoes and cucumbers for the gazpacho that Beth was making that night and peaches and blackberries. At a honey stand, I found a yellow and black striped gnome with a beehive in one hand a bee in the other and I took its picture for Nicole.
From there North and I continued down Rehoboth Ave where we went to BrowseAbout to get a birthday card for my mom. North browsed but did not buy anything. Next, we went to Candy Kitchen where I got taffy for the neighbors who were watering our garden in our absence, fudge for the house, sea salt caramels for myself, green apple army man gummies for North (eating them was an anti-militaristic statement, they assured me), and some dark chocolate-salted caramel-covered almonds for Beth, who had recently picked out a similar confection for herself at another store, put it down, and failed to bring it to the cash register.
Beth, North, and I went to the beach in the mid-afternoon, and the waves were better than average, the best of the trip so far. North and I swam and talked, but I also spent some time sitting with Beth and reading my mystery.
Beth left the beach first because it was her cooking night. Her beach meal is set—every year she makes gazpacho and salt-crusted new potatoes with cilantro-garlic sauce, served with Spanish cheeses, baguettes and olives. North made a pitcher of watermelon agua fresca to go with it. The meal was superlative, as always.
Mom was in the mood for ice cream afterward and it didn’t take much convincing to get everyone to the boardwalk. North and I stayed to ride the Haunted Mansion at Funland, which I love beyond reason, even though (or perhaps because) I have it practically memorized. The only surprise is whether it will take the route that goes across a balcony that gives you a brief glimpse of the beach and boardwalk and makes your car visible to passersby. We always hope for that and this time it happened.
One thing I do not love beyond reason is the idea of going to a water park at the beach. I am fine with water parks in their proper place, which is within amusement parks on a hot summer day, but if I am hot at the beach, I want to be in the ocean. So, I did not go to Jungle Jim’s with Beth, Noah, and North Wednesday morning.
While they were gone, Mom and I went out to lunch at our usual lunch place, O’Bies by the Sea. The food is fine, and it has an ocean view. It’s where I often indulge in my once yearly departure from vegetarianism, with a plate of steamed clams. I paired it with devilled eggs with Old Bay, and a berry cup. Mom got a crab cake sandwich.
I was alone at the beach that afternoon and I swam, walked the almost the length of the boardwalk twice, and read.
Mom cooked dinner that night. She made portobello mushrooms stuffed with kale and cheese, which were quite good. North asked what we wanted to do after dinner and I said something “undemanding” because I was worn out, so we ended up watching Mama Mia, which fit the bill.
Thursday: 81
In the morning Beth and North went kayaking in Rehoboth Bay. North said they explored a marshy area and got a little lost in its waterways and they saw herons, egrets, mussels, and many fiddler crabs. North found their asymmetric claws amusing.
While they were gone, Mom and Noah and I took a walk down to the boardwalk and sat in one of the pavilions. It was quite pleasant there, with a nice breeze and view of the dunes. We walked down to the beach briefly to look for dolphins because Mom hadn’t seen any yet, but none were in evidence.
We all got back to the house around the same time and ate lunch. Then Beth and I went to the bakery to pick up my mom’s birthday cake. It had pink and purple roses in the frosting, and she said it was almost to pretty to cut, but we did. I’d picked up some candles to go with it because I thought she would like their pastel colors and did not notice until Beth told me that they were the re-lighting kind. I warned Mom ahead of time and she said I should have surprised her with them. They not only re-lit themselves after she blew them out, but they threw off sparks, so there was a surprise after all.
In the afternoon, North and Noah went to Funland and Beth and I went to the beach. Rain had been threatening so I swam right away. The water was calm, probably because it was low tide, as I heard a man mansplaining to his companion. (Did you know there is one high and low tide each day and night and that they are not at exactly the same time every day?) I got out and read a few chapters of my book while North, who had just joined us, swam, and then I got in with them and swam again. The waves were a little bigger. Perhaps the tide had changed. I don’t know. Clearly, only a select few understand tides.
We went out for Japanese to celebrate Mom’s birthday. It’s a very pretty restaurant full of greenery, strung with fairy lights, and crisscrossed with koi ponds inside and out. (I would have liked to eat on the roof, but there were no tables available there.) We got some of our favorites—the kids got noodle dishes, we had edamame with Old Bay, seaweed salad, vegetable dumplings, and vegetable tempura. Beth got sushi and Mom got seafood pasta. Afterward we got ice cream on the boardwalk, having lucked into an excellent parking space.
North had been trying to get a root beer float since the water park, where they had been disappointed that it had been taken off the menu. They’d tried again that same day at another place that was supposed to carry them but had been out of root beer that day. We were returning to that establishment but, sadly, they were still out of root beer. North had to settle for coke float, their second one in two days. Beth drove Mom and Noah home and North and I walked home along the boardwalk in a fine, refreshing drizzle.
Friday and Saturday: The Last Hurray
With so much beach-going and other fun, I had been having a hard time keeping my blog up to date, so Friday morning I went to Café A-Go-Go to have a half-sweet Mexican mocha and a third of a piece of crumb cake and to pound the blog out before we returned home the next day and got buried in all those urgent things you have to do when you get home from a trip. Beth and North came with me and got their own drinks/treats, plus the other two-thirds of the crumb cake, and they sat outside so as not to disturb me. (When I asked my mom and Noah if they wanted to come and not talk to me, Noah said, “No thank you” and my mom seemed puzzled by why I was going in the first place instead of writing at the house or what she would do there.)
That afternoon everyone but Noah went to the beach. North and I swam in some very respectable waves, taking a brief break in the middle to reapply sunblock, rest, and eat cherries and pistachios. When the lifeguards blew the five o’clock whistle, we got out and headed back to the house for pre-dinner showers.
Dinner was mozzarella sticks, pizza, spinach stromboli, and gelato at Grotto. (Mom went around the corner to get a frozen custard.) The evening was mild and pleasant, after some warm and humid weather earlier in the week. Mom said festive umbrellas and strings of lights make every outdoor space more inviting and it does seem to be true. And when I went inside to use the restroom, I spied a pair of gnomes by the front door.
When dinner was finished all went around the table and said what our favorite part of the week had been, at Mom’s request. Noah wondered if he was allowed to say the water park (yes), Beth and I chose our anniversary, Mom liked her birthday dinner at the Japanese restaurant (“my favorite restaurant in Rehoboth”) and North chose swimming in the big waves that day. North had skipped dessert at Grotto because they wanted to try one more time to find a root beer float and this time, by trying a new store, they had success.
We got home and began packing. I assessed the contents of the fridge, tossing a few things and making decisions about what I’d throw out in the morning if no one ate it for breakfast and there wasn’t enough room in the cooler. (This is the most stressful part about leaving a rental house for me so it helps to think about it ahead of time.) Noah pitched in by eating a slice of birthday cake and some fudge on top of gelato. “I am doing my duty,” he said solemnly.
The next morning the kids had birthday cake for breakfast (“I do what I must,” Noah commented.) While we were packing and carrying things out to the breezeway in front of the driveway, an orange cat appeared and made the rounds, getting people to pet him.
After we vacated the house, we split into three groups. North and I went to the beach, Mom and Noah went to read in a boardwalk pavilion, and Beth returned the keys and went to read in a coffeehouse. Much to our surprise, the orange cat followed us when we left the house, even crossing a busy street. A man witnessed this, asked if it was our cat and when we said no, he scooped it up. North surmised he was going to take it to a vet to see if it was microchipped, because it was acting lost.
North and I had a nice final swim. When we got out of the water we saw a big pod of dolphins, including some that were jumping high enough out of the water that I saw their tails, but not their noses. It was the first time that week North and Mom (whom we fetched from the pavilion) saw any dolphins, so they were excited. Noah stayed in the pavilion to watch our stuff and by the time he got down there with his camera, they were gone.
We all met up for lunch. North got a sandwich at Green Man, Noah got fries at Thrashers, I got orangeades, and we brought them to supplement our meal at the crepe stand where we always have our last lunch on summer beach trips.
We had a few errands to do in town—a last run to Candy Kitchen, a last ice cream, a photo op at O’Bies by the Sea. Beth and I once took a picture there with my sister, who also went to Oberlin and Beth had the idea to take a new picture with our newest Obie.
Next we dropped by the realty to get the keys back because my mom had left a charger in the house, but the cleaners had taken it away, and when we checked back at the realty later (after a visit to the Crocs outlet on the highway) it wasn’t back yet, so we gave up on it and drove out of town, but right after a stop for gas, the realtor called and said it had finally been returned. We were not far away at this point, but I failed to consider that on a summer Saturday afternoon beach traffic is mostly going into town, not out, so it took much longer to get back than it had to get to the gas station in the first place. We weren’t driving away from the beach for good until 4:30.
After that we made decent time, but we got home later than we expected. Mom and the kids and I had dinner at Cava in Silver Spring, while Beth took the car home to unload it and then she came back and took Mom to her hotel. When we got back to the house, we were reunited with the kittens, and I was happy to see our first sunflower had bloomed in our absence. North and I tackled the first of what would be four loads of laundry so they could have all their clothes clean to take to camp and we fell into bed.
Sunday: Goodbyes
The next morning, we dropped North off at the camp bus stop where they would check campers onto the bus before boarding it themselves. Beth and I went to the farmers’ market from there and came home with tomatoes and a bounty of summer fruit (apricots, blueberries, peaches, and plums). Then she took me to Silver Spring, where Mom and I met up, wandered through a small street festival, listened to some music, and got Lebanese for lunch, while Beth finished the grocery shopping.
Back at home, Mom met the kittens, and took in the changes we’ve made to the house since she was last here. While Beth was out taking a walk, and Mom, Noah and I were chatting in the living room he got a notice on his watch that President Biden had dropped out of the race, so we turned on the television to learn more. It was a small relief, as I think Vice President Harris is in better shape to govern, though I don’t know whether she’s better positioned to win—and this question is causing me a lot of anxiety. At the very least, she’s not less likely to win. Beth came home while we were watching tv (also alerted to the news) because she had to work on a press release. It wasn’t the first time she had to work during this unprecedented week in American history. She is the communications director of her union so when something big needs to be communicated, it falls to her.
Mom and I took a little walk around the neighborhood, ending up at a playground where we reminisced about taking the kids when they were little. Later that afternoon, we took her to the airport and our visit was over. I’m hoping next summer my sister, brother-in-law, and niece will come to the beach and then we’ll be 12 to 82. Also, less interesting current events during a week of a Harris presidency would be fine by me.