Jersey Shore

I think last Saturday was one of the hottest days this summer. Knowing that it would be pretty hot, the Boy and I got up early and headed down to the Jersey Shore to cool off at the beach. We got to the Shore at around 10:30AM, and went straight over the beach at Belmar. As we neared the sand, a huge sea of brightly colored beach umbrellas dotted the Jersey coast. The place was packed and hot! Everyone was laying out with their sunglasses and bikinis, sipping cold drinks from their coolers and enjoying the sun.

When we got to the boardwalk, there was a wooden fence around the beach with people manning each opening. You have to pay to get onto the beach?!! Coming from the West Coast where almost every beach along the coast is free, we thought, "this is preposterous!"

After getting an iced coffee and some donuts in a wonderfully air conditioned Dunkin' Donuts, we walked along the boardwalk to check out whether we wanted to pay for Belmar or Sea(something), the beach right next to Belmar. Since they looked exactly the same, we each paid the $7 fee to get into Belmar. We figured, it was closer to the train stop and therefore more convenient.

We walked along the crowded beach along the water to cool down until we found our spot and laid out our beach towels. We didn't have a big beach umbrella, so we poked a little black rain umbrella into the sand to cover our faces as we laid out (quite a comical sight, I'm sure).

Despite the huge crowds of people at the Shore, the water was crystal clear and gorgeous! It got pretty hot under our little umbrella, so every half hour or so, we'd run into the water, splash around and try to ride the waves. This was the first time I'd ever tasted seawater, and it's definitely the saltiest water I'd ever tasted. Because I can't swim, I swallowed a lot of seawater each time a wave hit. Yuck!

We spent most of the day running in and out of the water and reading on the beach otherwise. Remebering the nasty sunburn I got the last time I went to the beach at Fire Island, I slathered myself with a heavy dose of BullFrog sunblock, but left some areas uncovered in an attempt to fill in some tan lines. My plan didn't work so well. By the end of the day, my skin was a ridiculous mix of brown tan tones, red sunburn tones and milk white tones for skin that had never seen the sun. I give up. I'm running to my bottle of sunless tanner to clean up this mess.

Rude Subway Behavior

Everyone who rides the subway knows how jam packed they get during the morning rush hour. Today, a girl on my train decided to ignore this fact and assume that she had loads and loads of personal space. As we exited 14th Street, I watched her get up from her seat, and then swing her bag onto her shoulder. I was amazed that the lady sitting next to her knew exactly when to duck so as to not get hit, while never looking up from her knitting. Unfortunately, I wasn't so quick. Not expecting that the girl would flick her wrist as she let go of a pole I was standing near, I ended up with a slap in the face on my way out.

Salsa!

I signed the Boy and I up for salsa lessons a while back, and they started a couple of weeks ago. Every Thursday night at 8PM, we walk down the street for our group lessons. The lessons are fun, but of course there are about 15 girls and only about 6 guys to go around. I'm fine with rotating dance partners because you aren't supposed to get used to only dancing with the same person, but I do find it a bit annoying at times that I brought a partner to the lessons, yet find myself dancing alone most of the time. This is also the reason why most girls at the lessons barely perspire (we can choose to take breaks when we have no partner), but the boys find themselves a sweaty mess by the end.

Today, the Boy and I decided to stay in and practice salsa dancing. We found some Mexican salsa music on his IPOD and some Santana songs that had a salsa beat. Then we ran into walls, stepped on eachother's feet, kicked eachother's toes and fell over laughing until we got the moves right by the end of the night. We're getting there!

The Softer Side of Me

Between the Boy and I, we've got 3 IPODs, all different versions. Mine is the Mini, and the Boy owns two earlier versions (he bought an IPOD when he first moved to the E.C., and then got another IPOD from his old boss as a Christmas gift). Because the Boy maintains all of the IPODs (rips songs off from his coworkers and downloads from other places), he swaps our IPODs occasionally when he feels like carrying the Mini instead of one of his older, clunkier versions.

This week, I found the his clunkiest IPOD ,which holds a lot more music (pretty much anything and everything he's been able to get his hands on whether he listens to it or not), in my bag in place of my Mini. I didn't mind so much, as I now had a vast variety of songs to choose from. So at work, I entertained myself with a lot of Beck, Black Eyed Peas, U2, and the Strokes. Somewhere in the middle of my day as I was scrolling through to choose my next song, I noticed Luther Vandross' "Dance With My Father" song and decided to click on it.

About 15 seconds later, my boss's boss stopped by my desk and motioned for me to hand over one of the earbuds.

Boss's Boss: Hand me one of those. I've always wondered what kind of music you listen to.

Crap! This isn't what I normally listen to. By now, my index finger was circling wildly around the touchpad, as I attempted to find and choose a Beck song. But damn it! There was just so much freakin' crap on this thing that it seemed to take forever.

Boss's Boss: What are you doing pushing all of those buttons?

Me: Uh, well, I was listening to some Beck when my finger slipped and clicked on some other random song. This is my boyfriend's IPOD, the touch pad is so sensitive, and there's just a lot of crap on this thing.

Ah, found it!

Me: Here (handing over an earbud).

Boss's Boss: No, no that's alright. So you mainly listen to alternative type music?

Me: I like a lot of everything, but I do listen to alternative stuff too.

Conversation continues for a minute and boss's boss leaves.

I plugged the IPOD back into my ears. Thank god the boss's boss turned down the offer to listen. Turns out that I'd found Beck, but didn't actually click on it, so Luther Vandross was still playing. I let the song finish. Secretly, I kinda like it.

I Really Should Just Dye My Hair...

A coworker asked if I'd been to Mexico and if people generally spoke English outside of the resort areas. Since I've only been to Rosarito and Ensenada (not very resorty), I told him that you could get by without speaking too much Spanish. I said that if you wanted to order a taco or something they'd understand. He busted out laughing, and then it hit me.

Fire Island

The Boy and I spent the day yesterday at Fire Island, a little resort town out on Long Island. We drove about a half hour to Bay Shore in Long Island and then took the ferry out to Ocean Beach, one of the more popular destinations on the island. When we first got off, a bunch of kids greeted everyone to peddle their wagons for rental. There are no cars on this island, so people use wagons to lug their things around and ride bikes to get from place to place, except that Ocean Beach seems to prohibit bike riding on weekends and holidays. I didn't think they were serious about no cars at all on the island. I thought they would at least have cabs for if you wanted to visit other island towns since the island is 30 miles long (only about .5 miles wide, though). We'd planned to visit the Sunken Forest, hang out at the beach and go clamming. But since the Sunken Forest is about 5 miles away from Ocean Beach with no real public transportation, the Boy and I decided to hang out at the beach all day.

Ocean Beach is a cute little town. It's full of bungalow houses surrounded by bamboo looking plants. After walking through about a half mile of bamboo and bungalow homes, we hit the beach with its soft, fine grains of sand. It felt so nice on my feet, and the water was so cool and clear. The Boy and I spent all day lying out on the beach, walking in the water, and listening to the waves. We fell asleep a couple of times in the sand and both ended up with nasty burns by the end of the day. But, what a perfect day trip!