Nights in Slower Lower

These are pictures I took with my travel companion's DSLR. Oh, how it captures low lighting so well at night, which is what I so lack with my point and shoot, and are the kind of pictures I want to take 90% of the time.

Beach and Bikes and Bummed

Back home from the beach. It was cloudy and/or rained for pretty much the entire trip. Sigh. I have bad luck with vacations and weather. We rented bikes, and I biked 17 miles, which was amazing because it felt like nothing. I brought back my dad's bike, which I misremembered as being a standard mountain bike. It's not. It's a cruiser. With pedal brakes. It's fairly large and a bit unwieldy. I rode it to an event that my friend Kevin, the creator of Gay RVA, was having a few blocks away. I wonder if I can sell it and buy a decent used bike? My dad had bought it new, just a few months ago, but it already has some wear and tear on it and I doubt I can get near the cost of what it was.

In other news, nursing homes are just sad, sad places. No one should live like that. I've never been one to exclaim that if I ever get sick, I just want people to pull the plug, am not in general a fan of Do Not Resuscitate orders, and think one should try all possible to maintain life (after all, we only get one), but I don't want to live like that when I get old. It's not a life. My grandmother has Alzheimer's and it's a terrible, terrible existence. What are we doing to our fellow citizens when we just make them hold on to life when life is no good any longer? I will try not to launch into a Euthanasia speech, because people are afraid of that word (see also: abortion, socialism, condoms, feminism, queer), but there's gotta be a choice here. My grandmother fell in the bathroom for the SECOND TIME (Nursing home, get your act together), and now she's in the hospital because she has gotten sick and has another infection and isn't eating or drinking. I find this out as soon as I arrive home, 4 hours away from having seen her for 2 days.

It's good to be home though. I'm having some leftover wine and eating some dinner and going to meet some of the OMGWTFRVA crew out for Karaoke tonight. I don't have to work tomorrow, yay!

Beachbeachbeach

The recent cooler weather has me lusting for fall again, but today it was summer-hot and I'm headed to my beach for a few days so I've got summer on the brain. September is a difficult time to pack for, since it is warm during the day but really cool at the beach at night. This is unlike the city where the nighttime temperature doesn't vary that much from the daytime. So I'm packing my summer sandals and breezy dresses but trying to figure out what sweaters and jackets and pants (gasp!) to pair with them.
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(Photo by Lloydlee Heite)

Tomorrow night I'll be here with some of my old high schools pals doing our band gang reunion. It's our tradition to bonfire on the beach, make Dorito s'mores, drink, and catch up. I haven't done it in ages and I CANNOT wait.

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(photo by me)

We'll also be staying in view of this again, for a cheap, cheap rate (yay off-season). It is also my goal to find us a better breakfast place this time. Other plans include kayaking and/or biking, fancy dinner, hot shoes, Make-it-Rain(TM), plastic menagerie margaritas and DE nachos at Tijuana Taxi, happy hour at Stoney Lonen, Dogfish Head distillery tour, maybe a show at the Cork, swimming in the finally-warm Atlantic Ocean, maybe some trivia at the Slam, photo-taking, magazines and newspapers on the beach, crossword puzzles, visiting my grandma in the nursing home, and scattering my father's ashes with my mom over the beach.

Packing is always a challenge for me because I like to have all my wardrobe at my disposal, and trying to limit to just a few pairs of shoes, pieces of jewelry, belts, etc is difficult. I've already overpacked, but I prefer it that way.

Photos from home

Being back "home" at my beach is nice, for a few days anyway. Then it's just lonely without someone else to share it with. I tried to make up for it by taking pictures. These are from a new home store:

These grafitti lamps I actually saw months ago on the web.

This is a cork lamp. It looks cool and weird in this shot

I love beach decor, so I liked this coral box

Glass sailboat votive holders. Much prettier than my camera captured them

This is a margarita and chips from my favorite Mexican place. I go every time I'm home.

They give you a little plastic animal with each drink. The server went to hs with me and I told her about my dad, so she brought my second drink out with one of every animal they had in it. I laughed and was very appreciative, since I collect them for my plastic menagerie. I thought it was a sweet, simple gesture.

I went out one night for happy hour to get out of my house and went to a local bar with a friendly bartender I met last time I was home and a chill atmosphere. He was great-- very Irish, named Chester, and we talked about my dad, family, our town, etc. Then 2 ladies sat next to me at the bar, around my mother's age, and we started up conversation. We ended up talking the whole night, and really bonded. They were both very sweet and even ended up paying my tab, which they totally didn't have to do, and was very nice. Then my old driver's ed teacher and his wife sat down at the other side of me, and we all chatted for awhile. (It really is a small town). I had managed to get a parking ticket (was 5 minutes late putting more $ in the stupid meter), and they took it from me and insisted on paying. I was truly overwhelmed with all the support from mere strangers, and it definitely made my night.

The ladies and I then went next door to a new place to get some food. We had garlic and parmesean fries and a BLT flatbread pizza. They tasted like heaven, probably because I was drunk.

We met Stephanie the bartender there, a friendly and pretty gal who'd recently moved to the East Coast from SoCal. This is a photo of her with Cindy, one of the women.

I had a grand time, and it was exactly what I needed. Thank you ladies, for that night.