Dreaming of the Beach

Cute little Xanthe imitating Scott after another one of his longboard charlie horses.

This is a horrible picture of me, but...this is Roberto.  He is the gardener at the beach club.  He's originally from Mexico City, but spent a long time in Tijuana and has been in San Diego for 27 years.  A few years ago, two of his sons died within a year of each other.  I got the impression through my limited Spanish and his limited English that they were killed.  For several years, Roberto told me about their deaths every time we visited.  I can't imagine how heartbroken he was, is, and always will be.  This trip, he wasn't so desperate to tell me about the loss of his sons.  Maybe he is slowly healing.

Araceli is 13, but looks like she's 20.  She was playing with Tolly and Tizzy on the jetty and a guy asked her if they were her children.  Yikes!

It was hard to drag ourselves away from our favorite paradise, but we wanted to have more cousin time, so we drove up the coast to Oceanside to spend a beach day with Jeff and Richelle and Nikki and Clint.  It's fun to take in a bigger swath of the coast than just the area between our condo and Cowabunga on the pier.  Oceanside was a great day.

Jeff, Scott and Nikki

Tanner, Chase, Cade and Britton

And Tyler!

And Landon and Jersey

And Jeff an Kiptyn

And everyone else!

We did the farmers market that night.

Golda bought some succulents to take home.

The entire trip, even when he was in the ocean, Freestone carried around 90 dollars in cash, whipping it out to admire it.  He got obsessed with these gel candles and paid for two of them with a wet ten-dollar bill.  Oceanside was a success all around!

Still True to My Inner Beach Bum

When I was young and not accountable to a husband, seven kids and a rigorous schedule, I always escaped to the beach the minute I had enough cash.  I spent two consecutive summers in Spain, where sandy stretches of the Mediterranean consumed weeks of my time.

This picture was taken by my 14-year-old daughter on a recent trip to Miami for her fourteenth birthday, accompanied by Mom (me) and Baby Sister.  My husband and I surprised her with the trip, whisking her off to the airport, only to have our flight cancelled by freezing rain.  In fact, that Band-aid on my elbow was a result of the wintery conditions we were trying to escape!

When we finally sunk our toes into the hot sand, something warm and essential was restored to our souls.  My birthday daughter felt it. Even the baby felt it.  She ate big fistfuls of sand, gleefully gumming the gritty mess.  I didn't care.  A beach bum does not fret if her baby eats sand.  A beach bum turns her face to the sun, knowing that, unlike the grains of sand we let fall from our thawing fingers after a long, snowy winter, our beach days are finite.  Each one is to be savored, even if that means literally savoring the sand.

Miami Nice

The second attempt at take-off was uneventful, that is to say, a success!  I had to laugh, though, when it was snowing in Washington, D.C. during our lay-over.  When does snow ever stick in D.C.?  We had to be de-iced!  The winter weather would NOT let us out of its clutches.  Once we touched down in Florida, however, winter was no match for clear skies and 75 degrees.  Aunt Tricia picked us up at the airport and took us to her oceanfront condo. 

Tricia's place is fabulous!  Imagine waking up to this every morning.  As soon as we arrived, we put Tizzy down and Tricia shooed Ruby and me out the door, encouraging us to go out on the town and not to come back until the wee hours.  Twist my arm!  A night out on the town with Ruby?!  And thus began the first night of birthday celebration!

Ruby and I went to a Greek place up the road, right on the water.  We sat outside and had a view of the Intracoastal, the waterway that's lined with multi-million-dollar homes and dotted with yachts.  We dined on stuffed eggplant, lamb and possibly the best calamari we had ever had.  Despite the fact that the waitress and I could not convince Ruby to get up and dance on the tables with our more inebriated fellow diners, the dinner was a success.

I have to give a shout-out to Tricia.  She was the perfect embodiment of "Mi casa es su casa."  Her condo was waiting for us as if it were made especially to welcome us.  There was food in the fridge, treats, clean sheets and towels and keys to the car, pool and beach.  We were in heaven.  It was fun to hang out with Tricia.  She is always up for a laugh and some fun.  We had a great time!  Thanks for everything, Tricia! 

My primary goals for our time away from Antarctica were 1. To park myself at the beach and 2. To drive to the Keys.  We accomplished both, which is not as easy as it sounds!  Relaxation does not come naturally to some people!  Of course, my overriding goal was to do just what Ruby wanted to do, even if it didn't match my desires.  Fortunately, the beach was as much a draw for her as it was for me.

We were up bright and early on Saturday, in time to see the sunrise over the ocean. OK, so we're not entirely relaxed if we get up at 6, but you can't relax all day if you don't start early.  Besides, it was RUBY'S BIRTHDAY!  There was a Canadian festival going on at Tricia's local boardwalk, so we strolled along the beach, where the street fair was set up.  There is quite a confluence of languages in the area, mostly Russian, French and New Yorkish.  :)

My cousin Sarah dropped off Alex and Lincoln to play at the beach with us.  They are darling!  Sweet and fun, happy and delightful.  We loved playing with them, especially Tizzy.  I could tell she really missed her brothers and sister, because whenever she saw children, she tried to get their attention by laughing and straining toward them.  She loved Alex and Lincoln!

As much as I would have LOVED to have Scott and the rest of the kids with us, it's  ablessing to be able to spend time with just a couple of kids at once.  Trips always come with realizations, and I realized this time around that I never lose my patience when I only have two kids with me.  Sad, huh?  Trips are great for seeing your children for who they truly are, away from everyday pressures.  And they're generally nicer people too, when their pressures are removed.  I made a commitment to restrain myself more in everyday life, to practice patience and to not let free-floating anxiety interfere with the way I strive to interact with my husband, children and everyone around me.  I wonder if I can be my beach self in a blizzard?  I'm going to try!

This beautiful little thing is a darn good traveler.  She is great on the plane, goes with the flow and is generally just happy.  EXCEPT one time in the car, Tricia was sitting with her in the backseat, and Tizzy just flipped out.  There was weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth.  She was so irate, she clawed her way out of the carseat and was standing up in it, shaking the handle.  Ruby jumped in the back, pried Tizzy's little fists off the carseat and held her until we got home.  I suspect she thinks it's undignified to be constrained by a carseat instead of just a seatbelt like everyone else.  And rear-facing, no less.  If there is one thing Tziporah can't handle, it's boredom.  She likes to be on the go, facing forward and grabbing life by the horns.  Or the carseat, as the case may be.

 At Sarah and Roland's house with darling Alex and Lincoln.  Alex was a great host, offering us drinks and showing us around the house, the pool and the boys' playhouse.  This was Ruby's birthday and we went out for sushi.  Hey, Ruby, we should have sung Happy Birthday!  Oh well, there were so many celebrations, we kinda forgot.

Sunday found us headed south at 7 am, toward the Florida Keys.  We got an early enough start that we had time to mosey, stopping at numberless tourist shops, flea markets and roadside attractions.  In Islamorada, we found just the type of restaurant I was looking for, a fish place right on the water.  It turned out to be the same place my dad and I lunched at five years ago.  Ironically, we had hamburgers, but they were gourmet!

This pelican had a fish stuck in its gullet and could not get it down.  Other birds would glide over to it, and we were making up bird dialog.  "Dude, what's the deal?  You can't swallow the fish sideways!  Dude, what's wrong with you?"  Poor bird...if survival of the fittest rules the Keys, this pelican is doomed.

And back to the beach.  Aaaaaaah!  Did I mention it was 80 degrees?

 Pure bliss.  Notice the band-aid on my elbow from slipping on the ice at home...twice!  Three-foot long icicles and snow up to my waist was a distant memory at this point.  In fact, winter seemed like quite a quaint and impossible notion as we let the sound of the waves overtake us.

 Ruby, practicing for motherhood with a book, a beach and a baby.

All good things must come to an end, and winter, it turns out, still existed in reality, not just in my distant memory.  We left Florida at 6 am, 75 degrees, and arrived in Salt Lake at noon, 19 degrees and snowing sideways.  Reentry was just as difficult as leaving, with the northbound freeway entrance closed to us and icy conditions everywhere.  It took my dad an hour to get us home.  Welcome back!  As delightful as the weather is in Miami, I am happy to be here at home with my little brood of penguins and my happy little igloo.  Now the crash of the surf is but a memory, but one I hold close to my heart, where the snow can't get to it, and where it can keep me warm until spring.