Ive been meaning to dish on the fabulous boat ride last weekend for the past 3 days but believe it or not, work has been catching up with me (i know, ridiculous!!). anyway, here goes it:
we begin this story at last Friday, when we all hit monty’s after work for a little HH action, bringing along our new coworker martha & her finance (who joined us there). Being a Friday, there were only two major drawbacks to the plan:
(1) it was insanely packed, which made it difficult to find a table; at first, we planned on going down to the tables alongside the water, but then a server dashed our dreams and told us that they werent allowed to serve alcohol out there anymore, although he emphasized that we could still eat and "drink cola" there. Unacceptable. This unfortunately meant we were crushed into a corner table by the insane dj booth, although this time, there was an actual dj, and not just a dude singing along to a karaoke machine (although if youve been to monty’s and know what im talking about, you likely have an odd affinity for that character).
(2) it was insanely hot. It was like wearing a wet hot wool sweater. No joke. Anyway you kind of cant let that kind of thing stop you when you live here (or so i assume?) so we cheerily dove into many plates of nachos and pitchers.
A few of us grabbed dinner afterwards at one of those japanese restaurants where you think you’re going to sit cross-legged on the floor, but actually, it only *looked* like that, and really, you awkwardly put your legs & feet into an ever-deeper opening so that you only *looked* like you were sitting on the floor, but in actuality, you were siting at a table that was like, 3 or 4 feet below all the other tables. Totally, totally weird.
Saturday i had to set my alarm (even though the night stopped at sushi), woke up at 9.30, quickly threw my stuff together, and ran to the market to get a collection of snacky food items for the day. Justin came to pick me up but after following the relatively confusing instructions on how to get to the dock, we realized it was literally like a 5 minute walk from my house, right near vaca gorda (the amazing steak place) and my local farmers market. Ironic. I never knew docks existed over there. Anyway, there were 7 of us, and a small baby, and we got out on the water, then eventually circled some of the bay, picked up two more passengers, and then circled out by the beach-side, where we dropped anchor about a mile out from the sand and swam with funoodles, miller lights in beer cozies, and lots of sunblock.
At one point, anton freaked us all out, saying that he had seen a shark fin nearby; which was confirmed by ashley; and again by one of the other people on our boat who was also a doctor who had recently had a shark bite in his hospital. Way to freak out a bunch of sun-exposed, mildly buzzed swimmers. Not a good idea... anyway we got over it eventually, ironically i dont think any of us actually left the ocean at that point, even with the threat of shark. A good deal of our time in the water involved people on the boat throwing grapes and cherries at those of us in the water; we would try and catch them in our mouths like seals. Im not sure how this game got started, although i suspect it was based on people on the boat just wanting to throw stuff at us. Oh, friends. Magically the afternoon disappeared, and we eventually motored back up and back to the dock by about 4.30 or so. Once you were out of the cool water, or not on a fast-moving boat, you were just overcome with how unbelievably hot it was: about 95 degrees, heavy and humid. It was painful.
When we got off the boat, we all engaged in dock-side spray downs to keep cool, and parted ways. I somehow spent the next few hours laying comatose in bed, watching ‘the real housewives of nj.’ but i couldnt even pay attention to that. Eventually i rallied for a run, hit the market, and then watched a movie. But even that took tremendous amounts of effort.
Sunday was perhaps one of the most relaxing days ive had in a long time: i felt no need to go outside, knowing full well that it was 95 again, and also know that i was still minorly-sunburnt; so i hung around, read, ran the treadmill, and eventually ran some errands. I swam, mopped, listened to npr, and made some kind of chicken thai dish that was in the nytimes last week. Lovely & uneventful and relaxing.
This week has been, thankfully, more of the same– although every morning has recently been a struggle to get up. Monday night my friend vera from skidmore was in town, so we met up and shared a fish at fifi’s; afterwards, we took a walk in the neighborhood, and she showed me where her family has a jewelry store- an old mom&pop shop– and i promised to go back and visit her uncle when it was open. On our way back to get her car, we stopped and walked down to the beach where there was this amazing, insane, gorgeous, stunning lightning storm: there were clouds all over, but you would see the lightning light up patches of sky in the very very far distance over the ocean, see lightning bolts, just over and over and over. It was totally magical, and difficult to get up- even knowing how tired i was. It felt like one of those moments when something out there is communicating, reminding you how lucky you are to be alive and see beautiful, natural, unexpected things. The bigger picture stuff, the ultimate stuff that has no end... its funny, i felt similarly last night, driving home from pilates when there was one little patch of sky where you could see vibrant yellows and oranges as the sun was setting; a reminder that you dont get to see these kind of things in other places, get too distracted looking down.
Tomorrow night is our second installment of ‘eating adventures’- we’ve got a group of 12 going to my pick- a Nicaraguan place (not that i know what kind of food that is) - but im very excited. Its a nice way to try new things and spend time with friends, and a little something different than always going to the same old standby places.
Well, thats really all she wrote for now. Time to finish my blueberry tea and get back to work... happy hump day!
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