Another successful year at the beach!
Well, maybe not completely optimal -- I did not break my bumper like last year, but my car did need a lot of dad-maintenance yet again. Saturday's drive was a lovely one, until I was about two miles from the beach house. I stomped on the brake for a yellow light (sigh) and almost stopped - and then felt something give, and the car kept going until I really put my foot to the floor. Ack. I knew I only had three turns left so I decided to just go for it (really there wasn't much thought involved other than holy poop why don't my brakes feel the same unless I stomp on them?!) and start stopping verrry far in advance. Not fun. Thankfully I pulled into the driveway without incident, but I would later learn that a rusted brake line had burst at that fated yellow light. Gahh. I had not previously given thought to the fact that brakes were perhaps not forever, which puts tailgating into a whole new light -- I just want to yell "YOUR BRAKES ARE NOT INFALLIBLE!" now. Anyway. I'm very lucky that my dad is a car genius, and got the right tools via a call to Steve who was still at the house, and all was okay. Except we broke one of the tools essential to fixing the line right after we did it, oops... but otherwise it was mostly a nice way to spend time with my dad (except that things broke, and minus when it rained so hard we had to close the garage door).
(will this part be the next to go? who knows...)
On a lighter note, this was the first year I was able to make the Lewes sea glass festival, which was super nice! We found all kinds of interesting things, and mom got me a glass and wire ornament that, in lieu of a christmas tree, I've hung on a light in our apartment. The historic area in Lewes is getting pretty cool, I'm impressed. For dinner on Sunday we hit up Cake Bar, a new place, for very good food and drinks and most especially CAKE! Hooray!
Cousin Beth Ann and Aunt Bobby took the Cape May-Lewes ferry over from their romp in Atlantic City, which was neat. This may be the first year ever that I've seen them two months in a row (previously: steve's graduation)! Very cool. Dinner was Saketumi, yum grilled pineapple mojitos and sushi.
Tuesday brought a bike ride with my parents, in which we saw a deer very close up, the new very large cannon up by the observation tower, some hilarious signs, and other things. Dinner was at the house, which you'd think would mean low-key, but it was actually a figure-out-how-to-smash-this-lobster dinner, weeeee.
Thus far we didn't know if Peter would be able to make it because of work he needed to do for comps (which are ridiculous and don't get me started), but it turns out he got the green light of sorts from his professor and took a greyhound from Pittsburgh to Philly on Tuesday. Not only did the wifi not work as promised, but in a sitcom-level turn of events, a pregnant lady's water broke on the way and caused a delay. Maybe not the easiest way to get across the state, but certainly the cheapest if you don't have a car! On the bright side, Peanut was heading down from Philly early Wednesday morning and picked Peter up from his parent's house on the way. Woop! This leg was also a little fraught with difficulty, though -- turns outPeanut's mechanic didn't put the right rear brakes back on properly (missing a very important bolt!) so we had yet another brake-related difficulty that required the many talents of my dad. So I brought this fancy yogurt breakfast into the car as we went to rescue them. Never a dull moment!
They still arrived in plenty of time for the Dogfishhead tour mom had set up. The target market was perhaps Steven and his beer-snobbery, but to a chemical engineer it was very cool as well! The beer was okay but I really liked the premises and especially the treehouse in front, which was sold from its Burning Man artist to the owner for a dollar, as long as he'd pay to ship and display it on the property. Steve, Peter, and I all have the same shirt with this on it. Neat!
Lunch was a hilarious mix of things - three dicke bockwurst in a can from germany, pickled asparagus, and lots of leftovers. On the beach (we ARE there, after all, though I haven't been mentioning it) we watched a rescue boat tow a previously sunk boat, and found some washed-up puffer fishes. Ken also brought a floating shark thing which he promptly used to mess with the grandparents.
Friday I finally got up early enough with mom to go on the morning walk to Henelopen with my aunt. Highlights include dolphin sightings and bird prints in the sand vs the monster sand smoother machine. During a later-in-the-day beach walk with Peter (up to the second pier! a first!) we saw a big Amish family playing on the beach. It was kind of amazing, the girls in the water with their big dresses and bonnets on. Must be so heavy, yikes. Yikes also to finding some washed up squids and showing them to all the kids on the beach during the walk back. :D
Last big dinner out was at Nage, where lots of fun was had via wine flights, chocolate cake, and strange foie gras eclairs, amongst other food. Since it was the last night, when we came back we had to try and do ALL THE THINGS that we hadn't yet done. This year that included trying the molecular gastronomy spoon shots again, and this time they were more of a success than when I did them with Sharon, probably due to peter's superb chemistry skills. They're still bizarre feeling, though. We subsequently distracted ourselves with sparklers.
Saturday brings general cleanup craziness in the morning, but it also yielded what I think was the best quote of the week from the grandparents:
Mommom: "David, you have to learn to put the toilet seat down!"
Poppop: "Yeah, I wouldn't want anyone to sneak in there and steal anything..."
BAM! What do you say to that? Impeccable logic. Unfortunately the quip seemed to go over everyone else's heads but Peter and I thought it was amazing.
After a brief de-stressing walk on the beach, we hit up brunch at a new place, JD's filling station. All sorts of fun car memorabilia that dad would like, but I had a very very dense oatmeal brick that wasn't really what I had expected. Certainly made me want to sleep instead of shop in the outlets, but I think we know what had to happen. :) We were pretty successful until Peter got too tired of it, so we drove him back to his parents and I took mom back home to unpack. We kept thinking we were going to have a nap but it never quite happened; dinner with the folks and Sue, then more unpacking, then just as it might have been zzztime a sudden call that Sue's train back to NYC had been canceled. Eeps! After a lot of time spent on hold with Amtrak, turned out that the huge storm of the prior night (which woke me up at 1am to watch the crazy lightning from the porch; Sue got excellent pictures) had knocked out electricity all over the northeast. Makes it hard to run trains that way, for sure. So we drove her up to Wilmington to catch a different train successfully...and then drove home to zonk out for sure!
If you got this far, I congratulate you. If you didn't, here's the too-long-didn't-read: I have a great family!
Peter and I continued the celebration of food and booze that is central to the beach in Pittsburgh with our CSA: black raspberries were put in chocolate ice cream, blueberries and peaches were eaten straight, cauliflower was roasted, cucumbers were made into juice, potatoes were mashed, and onions were chopped... and we attended a going away party for some of Peter's labmates, which was full of wine (we brought an "El Jamon" tempranillo, commemorating the most common word said by us while backpacking in Spain, a great find by Sylvia!) and meats and Patron. Not too shabby, June!
Well, maybe not completely optimal -- I did not break my bumper like last year, but my car did need a lot of dad-maintenance yet again. Saturday's drive was a lovely one, until I was about two miles from the beach house. I stomped on the brake for a yellow light (sigh) and almost stopped - and then felt something give, and the car kept going until I really put my foot to the floor. Ack. I knew I only had three turns left so I decided to just go for it (really there wasn't much thought involved other than holy poop why don't my brakes feel the same unless I stomp on them?!) and start stopping verrry far in advance. Not fun. Thankfully I pulled into the driveway without incident, but I would later learn that a rusted brake line had burst at that fated yellow light. Gahh. I had not previously given thought to the fact that brakes were perhaps not forever, which puts tailgating into a whole new light -- I just want to yell "YOUR BRAKES ARE NOT INFALLIBLE!" now. Anyway. I'm very lucky that my dad is a car genius, and got the right tools via a call to Steve who was still at the house, and all was okay. Except we broke one of the tools essential to fixing the line right after we did it, oops... but otherwise it was mostly a nice way to spend time with my dad (except that things broke, and minus when it rained so hard we had to close the garage door).
(will this part be the next to go? who knows...)
On a lighter note, this was the first year I was able to make the Lewes sea glass festival, which was super nice! We found all kinds of interesting things, and mom got me a glass and wire ornament that, in lieu of a christmas tree, I've hung on a light in our apartment. The historic area in Lewes is getting pretty cool, I'm impressed. For dinner on Sunday we hit up Cake Bar, a new place, for very good food and drinks and most especially CAKE! Hooray!
Cousin Beth Ann and Aunt Bobby took the Cape May-Lewes ferry over from their romp in Atlantic City, which was neat. This may be the first year ever that I've seen them two months in a row (previously: steve's graduation)! Very cool. Dinner was Saketumi, yum grilled pineapple mojitos and sushi.
Tuesday brought a bike ride with my parents, in which we saw a deer very close up, the new very large cannon up by the observation tower, some hilarious signs, and other things. Dinner was at the house, which you'd think would mean low-key, but it was actually a figure-out-how-to-smash-this-lobster dinner, weeeee.
Thus far we didn't know if Peter would be able to make it because of work he needed to do for comps (which are ridiculous and don't get me started), but it turns out he got the green light of sorts from his professor and took a greyhound from Pittsburgh to Philly on Tuesday. Not only did the wifi not work as promised, but in a sitcom-level turn of events, a pregnant lady's water broke on the way and caused a delay. Maybe not the easiest way to get across the state, but certainly the cheapest if you don't have a car! On the bright side, Peanut was heading down from Philly early Wednesday morning and picked Peter up from his parent's house on the way. Woop! This leg was also a little fraught with difficulty, though -- turns outPeanut's mechanic didn't put the right rear brakes back on properly (missing a very important bolt!) so we had yet another brake-related difficulty that required the many talents of my dad. So I brought this fancy yogurt breakfast into the car as we went to rescue them. Never a dull moment!
They still arrived in plenty of time for the Dogfishhead tour mom had set up. The target market was perhaps Steven and his beer-snobbery, but to a chemical engineer it was very cool as well! The beer was okay but I really liked the premises and especially the treehouse in front, which was sold from its Burning Man artist to the owner for a dollar, as long as he'd pay to ship and display it on the property. Steve, Peter, and I all have the same shirt with this on it. Neat!
Lunch was a hilarious mix of things - three dicke bockwurst in a can from germany, pickled asparagus, and lots of leftovers. On the beach (we ARE there, after all, though I haven't been mentioning it) we watched a rescue boat tow a previously sunk boat, and found some washed-up puffer fishes. Ken also brought a floating shark thing which he promptly used to mess with the grandparents.
Friday I finally got up early enough with mom to go on the morning walk to Henelopen with my aunt. Highlights include dolphin sightings and bird prints in the sand vs the monster sand smoother machine. During a later-in-the-day beach walk with Peter (up to the second pier! a first!) we saw a big Amish family playing on the beach. It was kind of amazing, the girls in the water with their big dresses and bonnets on. Must be so heavy, yikes. Yikes also to finding some washed up squids and showing them to all the kids on the beach during the walk back. :D
Last big dinner out was at Nage, where lots of fun was had via wine flights, chocolate cake, and strange foie gras eclairs, amongst other food. Since it was the last night, when we came back we had to try and do ALL THE THINGS that we hadn't yet done. This year that included trying the molecular gastronomy spoon shots again, and this time they were more of a success than when I did them with Sharon, probably due to peter's superb chemistry skills. They're still bizarre feeling, though. We subsequently distracted ourselves with sparklers.
Saturday brings general cleanup craziness in the morning, but it also yielded what I think was the best quote of the week from the grandparents:
Mommom: "David, you have to learn to put the toilet seat down!"
Poppop: "Yeah, I wouldn't want anyone to sneak in there and steal anything..."
BAM! What do you say to that? Impeccable logic. Unfortunately the quip seemed to go over everyone else's heads but Peter and I thought it was amazing.
After a brief de-stressing walk on the beach, we hit up brunch at a new place, JD's filling station. All sorts of fun car memorabilia that dad would like, but I had a very very dense oatmeal brick that wasn't really what I had expected. Certainly made me want to sleep instead of shop in the outlets, but I think we know what had to happen. :) We were pretty successful until Peter got too tired of it, so we drove him back to his parents and I took mom back home to unpack. We kept thinking we were going to have a nap but it never quite happened; dinner with the folks and Sue, then more unpacking, then just as it might have been zzztime a sudden call that Sue's train back to NYC had been canceled. Eeps! After a lot of time spent on hold with Amtrak, turned out that the huge storm of the prior night (which woke me up at 1am to watch the crazy lightning from the porch; Sue got excellent pictures) had knocked out electricity all over the northeast. Makes it hard to run trains that way, for sure. So we drove her up to Wilmington to catch a different train successfully...and then drove home to zonk out for sure!
If you got this far, I congratulate you. If you didn't, here's the too-long-didn't-read: I have a great family!
Peter and I continued the celebration of food and booze that is central to the beach in Pittsburgh with our CSA: black raspberries were put in chocolate ice cream, blueberries and peaches were eaten straight, cauliflower was roasted, cucumbers were made into juice, potatoes were mashed, and onions were chopped... and we attended a going away party for some of Peter's labmates, which was full of wine (we brought an "El Jamon" tempranillo, commemorating the most common word said by us while backpacking in Spain, a great find by Sylvia!) and meats and Patron. Not too shabby, June!
