goodbye, beastly

I meant to write about this earlier and . . . got distracted, I guess, which was good.

My parents had to put Sunny the 15 1/2-year-old Labrador to sleep at the end of April. Considering that when she was 12 we were pretty certain she was not going to make it to 13, I think she had a pretty good run, even if she did get pretty warty at the end. I called her Beastly with great fondness for the last couple of years there, and was certain every time I saw her that it was going to be the last time . . . for about eight or ten visits. Gotta love her.

conor and the dog

  

Just Sunny and Conor goofing off, plus Sunny doing what she does best at her advanced age: looking sad and/or possibly dead. (My mom says she plays "dead or asleep?" with the dog every morning. Aww, old Sunses.)

merry christmas from the dog

Sunny doesn't much like being an elf.

fifteen

Sunny the yellow Labrador turned fifteen on Saturday, September 10th. Lookin' good!

the isle of sand and snow II

   

   





I spent just over a week, from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day, in my favorite beach town on Earth, Stone Harbor, New Jersey. The sand-on-snow reminded me a lot of Sylt, but thankfully there was a whole lot more sunlight to be had on the Mid-Atlantic coast than there was on the North Sea last winter -- in spite of 18 inches of snow the day after Christmas! Happily, after the blizzard the sky turned blue and stayed blue, so we got in plenty of walking on the beach, and even bike-riding toward the end of the week, once the streets were pretty clear. We also had the best (eco-friendliest!) Christmas tree yet, which was in fact our deck umbrella. Classy!

true vacation

I recently spent two weeks in two of my favorite places in the world: New York City and Stone Harbor, New Jersey. I was in Stone Harbor for the Fourth of July and for my 24th birthday, on the tenth, bookended by a few days in New York. Stone Harbor was excellent. There was the usual Fourth of July barbeque at McGucks', with bonus bay swimming; three days of hanging out with Amanda; a truly awesome 15-mile bike ride with Dad to the Wildwood boardwalk and back; beach days that continued until eight at night, because it was just that beautiful out, and the usual five p.m. Stone Harbor breeze switch didn't occur to chase us off the beach, shivering; Backbays crabcakes and Henny's chowder from the new take-out location and Springer's ice cream; all the classics and more. As Bethany said, being in Stone Harbor is like being at home and being on vacation all at once -- perfection.

back at the beach (briefly)

I was home for Christmas and am back in Deutschland already. That felt like entirely too short a trip. Still, got in most of the important things: a walk to the beach; a bike-ride on the boardwalk to visit King Neptune and pick up sandwiches from Taste; a solid amount of Christmas shopping (oh, U.S. dollar, how I love you); the inaugural trip to Virginia Beach's shiny new Trader Joe's; plenty of cooking and eating and of course, lots of time with the family, Sunny included. Had to miss out on my grandmother's 85th birthday dinner at one of the taverns in Colonial Williamsburg, which was a bummer -- damned snow. Still, good trip overall, and it was so good to be home.

dear gravity, you held me down in this star-lit city

It seemed a little cool for a beach afternoon, so I took a Wawa hazelnut coffee and a package of Tastycake chocolate cupcakes and a book and meandered down to 88th Street pavilion with Sunny.

   



No-see-ums chased us off the pavilion after a while, but not before we got in a solid 45 minutes or so.

there were always golden rocks to throw

My parents just finished building a beach house in Stone Harbor, which is in far, far South Jersey, and is also where I've gone for at least part of the summer for my entire life. I will have to take and post pictures of the actual house sometime soon, but for now suffice it to say that it is, in every possible way, the opposite of every other house I have ever lived in in Stone Harbor. It is new and big and full of interior designer-type things!



The house is the rather epically large thing to the left. It looks ridiculously imposing. The car I drove senior year is to the right! Oh stick shift Honda Accord, I miss you.

   

   

   

   



Sunny the sleepy twelve-year-old Labrador is a huge fan of the closet.

A couple of bonus pictures of NYC:

   

A lot of the time I really do love this city.