excursions to Rehoboth Beach

An uneventful week. Tom on the night shift and we are still not really doing anything with our days. He is tired all the time. We are eating in every night and the kids getting to bed on time but I can't think of anything good that is coming out of the night shift. He has requested to go back to days. Arthur had another acting class on Thursday and we saw another play (the Emperor's New Clothes) and a magical walk down the boardwalk under an orange full moon. They played the arcade and Arthur won a stuffed animal (the "everyone-wins-a-prize" game :-) ) and we saw a sand castle the size of a hot tub, with a moat and towers on a hill. The boy with the shovel said "lots of kids" had been working for about two days on it. Some religious group was doing some kind of scavenger hunt in giant chartreuse t-shirts, and two hunky boys were playing frisbee on the beach. There was a cool breeze and the amazing spectacle of the pumpkin-colored moon rising above the crashing waves. Rehoboth really does have a more dramatic beach than Lewes. And it comes alive at night, while in day it's not my favorite place. We have found a little shop called Gidget's Gadgets that is the equivalent of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes; I think it embodies the character of the town as well as anyplace we've visited. They stock things like R. Crumb birthday party favors and a jack-in-the-box of a drunken crow. I didn't buy anything there but I did find a black crocheted bikini in a record shop (go figure where that fits in with their audiovisual line, I guess every shop in Rehoboth is required to stock some form of swimwear) and some Botan Rice Candy (which I haven't seen since the University Co-op had a candy store. There are a lot of great looking restaurants in this town I would like to try, but unfortunately they all look like the kind you'd want to hire a babysitter for. Will write more later about attractions when time permits.

Friday

It's the end of the week (well, nearly. they have asked Tom to work Saturday which is a bummer for me but makes us a day of overtime.) Did I mention in the previous post that we got the house? It will be available Sept. 10 and I am trying not to get too excited. Only a month more of wet sand and cold water, outdoor bathrooms, and constantly knocking things over. I put a clean A/C filter in and bought some incense, also the tent is drying out. I'm going to get a can of that waterproofing stuff I saw in the campground store. Not from them, though. They mark everything up about 100%. Arthur went to a drama class in Rehoboth and liked it a lot. Unfortunately there is only one more before the summer season is over, but maybe we can find some other place that has acting classes or children's theater. While hanging out at the "cannonball park" the kids made friends with a girl from Maryland who was living aboard. Her family was cruising the Chesapeake but their mainsail tore and they were tied up at Lewes pier while they found someone to repair it. I think they were about to give up and go home. Maybe they did, or maybe they got the sail repaired, because yesterday when we drove by, the boat was gone. The same day we met the girl and her extremely talkative mother, there was a beautiful blue boat just leaving. She said they were bound for Ireland. We were jealous.

Yesterday afternoon I gave in to collective pressure and we went to see a movie. Sharkboy and Lavagirl. It was fun even if the kids were nervous about seeing a "pop-out" movie. After a while though they forgot to be scared. I had trouble with my 3-D glasses because I had my regular glasses on underneath. Oliver slept through the whole movie so I got to see the whole thing. Yea Keefe, I saw your name in the credits! I didn't recognize any Austin locations though. Thi smorning Arthur had to tell me about his dream world which was in a kind of forest, and at breakfast we all tried making 3-D drawings with red and blue crayons. We heard there is a dim possibility of a hurricane striking this part of the Atlantic. What irony. Unfortunately I don't think our little tent could weather a heavy storm as well as the sailboat, so I am keeping an eye on this one in case we have to get a motel room inland.

We have been spending a little more time in Rehoboth since Tom started working evenings. It is a bit more crowded, young and exciting. It is also the most "out" place I think I have ever been. All kinds of shops, motels, restaurants, etc. are flying the rainbow flag. Besides the gay tourists, there is a crush of families who descend on the beaches, making it much more crowded and stressful than Lewes. Rehoboth also seems to be a bigger teen hangout: we saw gangs of scowling little goth kids on the boardwalk, making fun of passers by. It was kind of cute. The buses run from 9AM to 2AM in season, so the nightlife is accessible (unless like us, you don't have a babysitter). More to come on Rehoboth later, when I have more time.

Day 2 of night shift. Still don't like it much, but we took a couple of weeks to adjust to the 7-3 schedule so this will probably pass. Now that we've started looking for a house, all the inconveniences are suddenly more annoying. It rained all day today and Tom didn't get a chance to empty the grey water tank before leaving for work. Desperate to wash dishes (!) I tried to empty it myself but could not lift it. Rigged up another greywater tank out of our blue bucket. It will last until tomorrow at least. What a relief to get the dirty water drained out of the sink, and have clean bowls to eat out of. (And what a treat it will be when we once again have hot running water -- more things you didn't appreciate until you went without).

After four weeks, the kids have finally unpacked the legos. I was surprised it took them this long. The only toys they have played with so far are the stuffed animals, small plastic animals, and board games. They are acting out some kind of Harry Potter related drama since many of the lego figures are from the HP set.

We finished the book this morning. I won't spoil it in case anyone I wants to read it but hasn't, but I will just say that I wouldn't have taken the story in the direction it has gone in. It is a little depressing just to finish the book, when we have been reading the series for three months now. There are no books left for, what, another two years or so? Will have to rely on fan fiction now. On the other hand, now I can read and post on HP for Grown-ups without fear of spoilers. I can't wait to hear what they think.

Arthur still needs to publish his HP stories, so now we can be busy composing instead of reading. Even better, we can start a new read-aloud book. Tom is going to start The Great Brain, which I never read. I liked the idea of doing the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory books, or maybe something related to Medieval history. David read the Wishbone version of Beowulf last week. Me, I am in the middle of the Siouxsie and the Banshees bio, and a pile of Atlantic Monthlies the library had in their free box. Anarchy on the High Seas, cool.

Did I mention it rained all day today? I was feeling pretty smug about having a deck when I saw the giant deep puddle in front of the pop-up. We'd be wading through that. Tom bought a pile of wood at Home Depot and put it up in one afternoon. It's a bit funny, a pop up tent with a wood deck. But we really are in the biggest mud puddle in the campground. Actually it's not so big: a minute triangle of sand at the junction of two roads. Too small for a proper trailer. Even the other tent sites are bigger than ours. But it was the only one available for three months in a row. At least we're not too near the bath house, the septic tank, the stagnant river, or the garbage.

We're having ongoing problems with leaks, which I'm sure is par for the course camping out. Today a new little river ran in at our mattress and soaked everything. The bedspread is mostly dry, and the pillows a bit damp. The A/C leaks when on, and when it rains, so there is usually a puddle in the kitchen area. But it must pull gallons of water out of the air when it's humid, so we're not going to say anything too offensive about it.

Being here for weeks is interesting because of the constant parade of people through the campground. The three sites across from us change almost daily. One couple from Quebec stayed for a whole week. The "permanent" trailers up the road behind us are mostly weekenders. The campground itself is run by a family who live on site. They are all pretty friendly and easygoing. They are constantly improving the place: this week they are cutting a new swath of campsites down one road, and they just installed cute little street signs (ours is "Cypress Circle"). We figured they must be making piles of money, but I suppose their season is three months or so and has to cover the whole year.

Second shift

We are starting a new schedule this week - Tom is working 3-11 so we have our days relatively free. Still in the honeymoon period of waking up at 6AM so that leaves us a lot off free time. It's raining here, so we are in the library. Going back to the pop-up and I hope it's not soaked. We are relatively leak-free but there is always a corner of the bed that gets soaked. More later -- cheers