Random thoughts from the week at the beach

My week long beach house vacation is over. Many new memories are created when your offspring (a four year old and a one year old) get to the beach. My one year old kept me on my toes the whole time. She was running for the waves like a bottle of milk before bedtime. Let me tell you that the waves were getting quite large on Friday and Saturday due to hurricane Bill way out there in the Atlantic. I wish I had pictures but our digital camera is on the fritz. I have some on the way from friends that stayed with us but that will have to wait. I also have some pics for the foodies....lobster...steamed clams...and eventually the best seafood chowder ever.

I had two of my best friends bring their families up and I wish I could have invited everybody but you can't fit that all into one week. I just may have to give the two week beach vacation a try next year. I don't know...I've had enough of the sun for a couple of weeks. I've also had enough of the beach migration ritual with the kids until next year. It's fun but it really can make you lose track of just about everything. Including your kids! Luckily my sister, bro in law and four daughters were staying on the other side of the cottage. My parents have this beach house that is split down the middle with 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, an indoor porch and a wrap-around porch (on both sides) surrounding the whole thing....split directly down the middle. We are able to open up the door that separates the two sides and basically its like we had 10 kids running around the whole thing. Sat. Fri. we had 6 kids running back and forth. Sun. Mon. Tues. and Wed. there were 8 kids running back and forth. Then on Thurs. Fri. and Sat. there were 9 kids running back and forth. Unbelievably crazy but we got the best beach weather of the whole summer. No rainy days except for one day.....Saturday....the morning we left. Remnants of the the outer edge of hurricane Bill made for some of the worst rain I've ever seen. People in SUV's were pulling to the side of the highway.....that bad.

Saturday : We get to the beach and my brother in law is getting me ready to up and leave and get drunk. We have a few beers then head down the beach to a one of his buddy's houses. Stop into various cottage for beers and vodka soaked pineapple chunks (it was like doing a shot of vodka every bite...and there were many bites). We get back to the beach house and before I can get sucked into my porch chair it's time to get going again. Wife wasn't hugely happy but I told her to go out the following night with my buddies wife. Parent-kid situation happily avoided. We then go to his firefighter buddy's beach house and more beers are readily consumed. Then we go to the outdoor beach party at the biggest place at Salisbury (Palms at the five or Five at the Palms...I don't know). Ernie and the Automatics were playing outside the area on a stage (again pics would be good but I was far to drunk at the time to care). Ernie and the automatics are a band consisting of Ernie Boch (car sales magnate and apparently musician) and two of the original members of the band Boston and a few others. Inside the club had another band playing some rock hits of the 70's and 80's etc. good beach music. By this time I'm completely in the wrapper as they say and playing air guitar and screaming random lines from songs. My Sister and brother in law are staring at me and can't believe how drunk I am. But hey....it's the first night of my vacation....and after consuming 20 beers and 5 shots or so of Vodka soaked pineapple....I didn't feel bad the next day. Something about that beach air....come to think of it...it's like when I'm in North Conway (White Mountains). It must be the air!

Sunday : My buddy and his family get there around 3:00PM and they get there after dealing with THE worst traffic of the summer. We have a few beers and head down to the beach. I get properly sunburnt even though I'm covered with sunblock. The sunblock is over a year old and I was in the water the most of the time...so that washed off quickly. The first time I dove into the cold Atlantic water I jumped out like a dolphin and adjusted...after 5 minutes. I felt the job/financial related stress slowly melt out of my body into the Atlantic. I honestly felt it move out of my body...it was like the most refreshing swim I can remember in a long time. My buddy and I ended the day cooking steak tips and other grilled goodies on the new grill my sister had recently purchased. This is one of those grills with the side canister of propane or butane. It had a temp. control knob on top and was better than any comparable grill. Since we were on the driveway level I suggested my buddy start up his new car and crank some tunes on the new XM satellite radio that he also has. We listened to a variety of satellite stations and drank beer while everybody waited for grilled stuff. I told him to turn it on low so we didn't have to run the cooked goodies up the stairs until we had a large amount of beers. Last year at this time I had a charcoal grill and cooked for an hour and a half and proceeded to get completely sloshed.

Monday : Same as Sunday with more sun, grilled foods and booze. Tough routine to keep up with...who am I kidding.....

Tuesday : More beach and at least some seafood to keep everybody happy. I cooked 7 lobsters and 2 lb's of steamed clams. My wife got this recipe for steamers on the internet and it made one hell of a broth.

Recipe :

In the Big pot that you will be cooking your steamers
1. Fry up About 4 slices of Center Cut Bacon
2. Add butter and a teaspoon of minced Garlic
3. Add a dash of oil so your pot doesn't burn
4. scrap off the flavor on the bottom of the pot
5. Add water from corn on the cob
6. Bring it to a boil and continue to scrap the bottom of the pot
7. Put in pre-soaked steamers
8. add chopped Parsley and give a good stir
I also added my own ingredient.....one Sam Adams Summer Ale (this is very important)
Mixin' up the ingredients........



I took some pictures but I don't have 'em yet (I do now). Friends need to email the 3 lb. Lobby that had a claw I called the 'Devastator'. Aptly named after I broke a solid metal nut cracker in half. But I conquered the 'Devastator' and the rest of that 3 lb'r with a zeal that makes people uncomfortable. I don't just eat a lobster...I bathe in it's blood! Of course the rest of the night was finished with lots of beer.

The 'Devastator'


Some other random lobby and clam pics :





Everybody was sleeping and my buddy and I are sitting on the porch. He says "You want to go to the bar?" (There is also a house of ill repute aka TensShowClub that is now one of the best nudie bars in New England)....I wasn't exactly feeling motivated to go to the nudie bar...not because I didn't want to but because I smelled like a giant lobster. That may have been a good thing back 15 years ago when that place was called 'The Bowery' but not anymore. I reached into the cooler and basically didn't have to say anything. "Me neither....can you throw me another brewski?".

Wednesday : First visiting friends and their family go home and I go back to beach with Sisters family for the day. I of course decide to sample some of New England's finest micro brews and down a few margaritas for good measure. Later on in the night when everybody is sleeping I go online to some unsuspecting persons wireless router which is unsecured of course. I suffer Full Tilt Pokers wrath and lose when I push with a better hand than the caller and bubble on the money. What the Eff else is new?

Thursday : Second round with friends visiting with their family. We go to the beach for the day again and by this time the weather was HHH (hot, hazy, and humid)so it gets so hot that we have to get off of the beach for the mid day and wait until 4 PM to go back down. It turns out to be the best as everybody basically has a siesta. This time they have three kids and make a total of nine kids running back and forth from one side of the cottage to another. They decided to label my cute 1 year old a witch and all run away from her and over each other. My buddy and I head out to the porch and drink beers, Jim Beam and Cokes, and Vodka soaked pineapple slices. I had my wife pick up two pineapples and I hacked them to shreds and soaked them in Raspberry Stoli. I have to tell you that this is the ultimate beach house desert. We end up drinking until 4 AM and have to get up at 8 AM of course.

Friday : Beach, Food, Booze....then Beach....then Raspberry soaked pineapple...then booze and beer. We decided to get fried seafood on Friday and that was damn good too. Scallops, Shrimp, Clams, and fries all fried up in cornmeal battered goodness. That totally reminded me of growing up at Salisbury Beach. It was a great beach in 70's...a not-so-great beach in the 80's...a really bad beach area in the 90's and a half decent beach in the 00's. Hopefully my parents don't sell the place and my kids can grow up at a beach house....that would be a great thing to go there every year for at least a week. Somewhere in between we are actually really good about keeping our kids happy, healthy, and safe believe it or not. The waves were ridiculous on Friday...but much worse on Saturday when we took off. So I'm outside chillin' at about 10 PM or so and the kids had a big day. They just got to sleep and I hear my cell phone ringing. I had no idea what to expect but THIS guy called and said "BAMBAM"....I said (pretty smashed and trying to be a little quiet) "what?"
"BAMBAM....hey it's a dial-a-shot"...."OH shit....Holy crap...nice...." I grab the nearest bottle and poor a giant shot...raspberry Stoli I think. I was on my last full night at the house and this put me and my buddy and my older brother into overdrive. So BamBam the Benevolent (I have that copywrited) strikes again. Damn if I don't owe many people a dial-a-shot but this guy added the cap to a fantastic vacation. So after that my buddy and I drink until 4 AM again...LOL. I've known my buddy since I was 4 or 5 years old. Now we're raising families and partying at the beach house...I wouldn't have it any other way. We got into those soul searching conversations that only seem to be appropriate when sitting on the porch by the sound of the ocean waves in the background. My buddy was talking to me and there were some shooting stars in the sky. he's watching a shooting star behind where I'm sitting and it disappears behind my head. "That shooting star just went right into your head dude!....must be some kind of good luck or something" LOL...deep soul searching conversation indeed!!!

Saturday : We had to get out kind of early because the lady that cleans the house needs time. I don't even think my friends and their kids had anything packed. They just took about 10 minutes and had everything including their 3 kids ready to go. After they took off we had to do some major packing...it took a while but after sweating 5 lbs out and the baby screaming her head off for an hour we got out of there. The rain started and on the way home I saw some of the worst rain ever. SUV's were pulling to the side of the road. I swore we were going to see a tornado right after. I get home and unpack. I also fire up PC and Full Tilt Phucker. I proceed to suffer a series of devastating suckouts while getting my chips in ahead every single effin time. I mean like 10 tourneys in a row devastating suckout after humiliating suckout. I was tired but I was playing well. I hate Full Tilt Phucker...I really do. I did not miss this while on vacation. I am putting serious thought into leaving my putrid record on Full Tilt completely behind and sticking with Stars and Bodog.

Sunday : I noticed that my wife saved the broth from the Steamed clams that were cooked at the beach. We get shrimp, bay scallops, haddock, the left over lobster tail and two claws, potatoes, and two more lbs. of steamed clams. My wife ends up making some of the best seafood chowder out of those ingredients EVER. At least I get to extend my vacation through food this week. Look at the Seafood chowdery goodness!





ON TAP this upcoming weekend : The Allman Bros. band (40 anniversary tour) at the Comcast center in Mansfield. Can't wait.

Edit : I just found out where my tickets are....

not bad for getting them right at the box office!!!!