Bizarro Week

Remember that Seinfeld episode where they feel like they are in "Bizarro World"?  That's how last week felt.  Now don't get me wrong - our week at the beach was fabulous.  We had great weather, a nice place to stay, lots of together time, etc.  But so many weird things happened last week it made me wonder if we had somehow entered the twilight zone.  I don't really know where to begin - so I'll just start at the beginning.

Flying Bicycle:  Our trip started off as most trips do - with a lofty plan to leave by blank o'clock (in this case 10:00 a.m.) which always seems to be do-able until about an hour before we leave when all hell breaks loose.  We were making great time until Jack and I collectively decided that we wanted to bring our bikes to the beach with us.  John rolled his eyes, because of course he knows that although we have grandiose ideas of getting up early every morning for a lovely bike ride along the beach, the reality is that we usually get out there once and that's about it.  He relented and we then spent an arduous, sweaty, frustrating 45 minutes trying to strap the bikes to the bike rack which is not user friendly at all.  After struggling to get these things on we finally decided we were done and off we went.

I was not convinced however that the bikes were on there securely.  As we sped merrily along I-95 I kept glancing nervously behind me to make sure the bikes were still there.  About thirty minutes later as we rolled down route 50 towards the Bay Bridge at about 60 miles an hour, I glanced back again.  To my horror, the front of Jack's bike was spinning wildly and my bike was gone!  GONE!!!!!  At the exact same moment that I shrieked "OMG, my bike is GONE!!" a van pulled up alongside our car, its occupants madly waving at us and honking as if to say "Hey you dumbasses, your bike just flew off the back of your car!"  We pulled over to assess the situation.  I got out, checked the back of the car and sure enough, the straps had snapped open and my bike was completely gone.  Other cars driving by honked at me but I didn't see my bike anywhere.  Praying that the bike had not hit anyone else and caused a major accident, we continued on our way.  After a while, once I listened to a few traffic reports and assured myself that the bike had not impaled any unfortunate drivers, John and I laughed hysterically and wondered what else could possibly top that weird event.  Little did we know.

Nice condo, no parents, no ham - this can't be Wildwood:  Once we arrived at our destination we experienced a very bizarre feeling of knowing that we were at the same beach we've vacationed at for the past 10 years, but feeling like we were somewhere else.  For years we have stayed in very modest dwellings, piled on top of each other, mattresses on the floor, long walks to the beach, sometimes with one bathroom for up to eight people.  This year we had this big fancy condo with THREE bathrooms, a gourmet kitchen with granite countertops, a short two block walk to the beach.  For the first several hours I kept feeling like we were vacationing somewhere else.  My parents were not there, which I wrote about here.  Then my sister and I realized with great trepidation that no one had brought a ham.  My parents always brought a ham to the beach which we would pick and tear at all week long - making sandwiches for the beach, ripping pieces off late night if we were hungry after a few drinks, etc.  But this year, not only were my parents missing but there was NO HAM!!!!  It's just not Wildwood without that ham.  



Earthquake that everyone felt but me:  Once we got over the "Are we really in Wildwood" funk, we managed to settle into a fairly normal beach week routine.  Bakery in the morning for apple fritters, setting up our camp on the beach for the day, chasing kids, toddlers, babies into the surf, boogie boarding, digging in the sand.  Then came the earthquake.  I didn't feel a thing.  Neither did anyone else in my family - but somehow everyone sitting AROUND us managed to feel it.  Then we discovered that the earthquake had occurred in Virginia, our home state, a mere 90 miles southwest of where we live!  Neighbors and relatives at home reported feeling the earth shake, hearing a large BANG, thinking there was a terrorist attack and not a natural disaster.  Hmmm - the one time we have something exciting like an earthquake and we're not even home to experience it.  What a rip-off, as my kids like to say.  How weird, we all said.  First the bike falls off the car, now there's an earthquake - what else is going to happen?  Maybe we shouldn't have asked.



Hurricane, what hurricane?

 Mandatory evacuation - the icing on the cake:  Because of the excitement from the earthquake, no one was really paying attention to the other natural disaster that was brewing down in the Caribbean.  By Thursday morning everyone on the beach was buzzing about the possibility of a mandatory evacuation.  Ridiculous, we scoffed, no way.  That would never happen.  After all, it's bright and sunny here, right?  And that storm isn't going to get here until Sunday, well after our vacation was scheduled to be over.  Then the skies turned black, rain started pouring and by the time we got back to our fancy condo the news was plastered all over our lovely flat screen tv - mandatory evacuation starting at 8 a.m. tomorrow, a full 24 hours before we were even thinking of starting to pack to go home.  Our notion to delay the evacuation and get one more day of beach time was dashed when we ventured out onto the beach the following morning to get one last glimpse of the ocean.  The beach was deserted and the cops were riding up and down the beach, "The beach is closed, evacuate the island" blaring ominously out of the megaphone attached to the roof of their truck.  We did manage to spend about an hour there and took this awesome photo before they finally told us point-blank to get out.

Edward Scissorhands attacked our bushes:  So the beach week ended a day early, we drove to Philly to get our dog and then finally made the drive home, trying to beat Hurricane Irene before she reached our area.  By now I was fighting off a terrible cold that my sister had suffered from earlier in the week so I was feeling like death.  As we pulled onto our street, a steady rain was falling and we breathed a sigh of relief that we were finally home.  Nothing else could go wrong at this point - we'd been through it all.  Then we pulled into our driveway and noticed that our lush forsythia bushes which had provided a much needed privacy barrier between our yard and the next door neighbor's had been reduced to a third of its size - hacked and butchered into a boxy, ugly shrub.  John and I were speechless - we actually looked at each other and did not know what to say.  WTF came to mind but the children were still in the car.  Turns out our neighbor decided to do some pruning to his side of the hedge and somehow got carried away and hacked away at it until there was hardly anything left.  All I could think was "What next?????  Will this bizarro week never end?????"  This story is yet to be finished.



Apple fritter - how I love you.



So there you have it.  All in all a lovely week - with some bizarre events thrown in just to make it interesting.  Now I've got to go lie down so I can get over this cold which does not seem like it's ever going to go away.  I'd kill for an apple fritter right now.