So, summer at home is pretty darn sweet. The past few days are proof.
On Friday, I was awoken unfortunately early by my dad, who told me that the cable guy called and wanted to reschedule his visit from between 2-5 to 10:00 AM. Ew. The Comcast van pulled up, my mom let him in the house, and I jumped out of bed and put some shorts on. Talk about presentability. He got the cable working; apparently the branch of cable leading to the modem had a pretty weak signal; we rearranged the splitters and now it works fine. So this is officially the first ASD post I’ve made at home—with broadband!
At around 10:45 I met Chris, Josh, and Matt at Chris’ house. We watched as the street sweeper went down Chris’ street, and marveled at its tough bristles. Chris had just gotten back from planting some shrubs at his uncle’s house, so he showered, and we were off. We stopped at Sunoco to get gas ($32 for 75% of a tank.. grr), then went straight to Fall River. We got there in good time, and drove around trying to find Graham’s, the hot dog place we went to Fall River to visit. After some excellent work with the map, we arrived, walked around Fall River looking for ATMs, and then sat down in Graham’s.
Josh ordered 21 Coney Island dogs, and I also got a cheese dog and an order of fresh-cut french fries. Wow, what a load of food. The hot dogs were worth the trip—good dog, soft bun, mustard, onions, and a spicy meat sauce on top. I had 3.75 hot dogs, Chris had 3, Matt had 5, and Josh had 4. Thoroughly full and soon to be gassy, we set back out for the road. You can imagine what the ride was like: four guys with loads of spicy hot dogs gurgling in our stomachs, on a sunny 94º afternoon. Stinky!
I sped back up the highways, probably around 85 mph, and we got home in no time. I set up the cable internet and then called Chris, who picked me and Kristina up, and we met Corinne and Monique at Josh’s house. From there, we walked the four minutes to Rexhame Beach, where we met Ralph. The beach was fabulous. The water was frigid, so I just ran in and ran out a few times; Josh and Chris went in, too, but the girls didn’t! I dragged a giant log out to sea and we watched the tide take it our of our sight; I also started construction on a giant sea wall to protect a sand fortress I’d built. Chris and Josh and Ralph helped fortify it, and Monique built castles on it. It was huge, and the rising tide didn’t manage to wreck it for about an hour. Monique took pictures; I’ll post them when I get them.
Kristina was on the phone with Andrew a lot of the time; apparently, he was on his way up from Pennsylvania and was driving through Connecticut. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get to Rexhame in time to meet us there. Ralph and Monique left; Monique wanted to open the package she’d had delivered—her new corset. Corinne and Chris and Josh and Kristina and I were left; we ran around on the beach and generally played around. The setting sun was beautiful; just before dusk we left and walked back to Josh’s house.
Those of us who hadn’t had the hot dogs earlier in the day were pretty hungry, so we decided to go out. We stopped at the Rexhame General Store, where the hot chick behind the counter told me I’d picked a good flavor of Gatorade. Squee! Then we went to Star Market to wander around for a while and pick up some food. After that, we hung around at Josh’s for a bit and headed home. After dropping Kristina off, Chris and I had a long talk about friends and girls and life and all that good stuff that I can’t talk about here. After that, he dropped me off back at home. I played around with the new cable internet for a while, and fell asleep.
I didn’t do much for most of the day Saturday. But after 9 o’clock, things got fun.
We woke up at around 8:30 AM on Sunday morning and I headed home and ate some pancakes. Yum! Then my dad and I fixed the blown speaker in my car, which involved not a little improvisation to make it work. I napped the afternoon away, and then enjoyed the first family cookout of the season—cheeseburgers, grilled chicken, barbecued chicken, potato salad, and macaroni salad. Double yum!
I showered for the first time in probably four or five days, and it was glorious. Though I lost a lot of hair. It seems that whenever I don’t shower for a few days, all the hair that normally falls out, doesn’t fall out—well, I mean, it does, but it gets stuck in all the other curly hairs that are still attached, and apparently just hangs around in there. So when I brush it before I shower, all of it just collects in the brush. It was quite a clump (eww). But anyway, now I smell nice and look clean again. It’s a wonder that I’m apparently more of a hippie at home than at Wes. What’s up with that?
Things have been going well with people back at Wes, too. While tubthumping last night, I called up Claire and had a hilarious phone call (I’m sure it was even more hilarious on her end). I talked to Tom from Greece earlier today, and had a good conversation. And Mad and I talked about things today, but that’s a topic for another entry.
Hmm. It’s 4:30 AM and the birds are already chirping. That’s the worst part of being on this schedule: the sound of the birds waking up as I’m about to go to sleep. Makes me feel so out of touch with the natural cycle of the world.
Oh well!
