Life is a Beach

There are many disadvantages to being jobless, but one advantage is that when you get an invitation for a mid-week trip to the beach, you can just pick up and go. And I did. The trip provided the perfect excuse to bring along my recent wine gift to share (forget delayed gratification for me) and if ever there was a perfect place to enjoy a bottle of 2007 K Ovide, it was sipping it leisurely on a deck overlooking the ocean. You score a lot of points when you bring such a fine hostess gift, I noticed.

I usually go to the beach during June and July. so I wasn't even sure what to expect out of fall on the Outer Banks. Of course the crowds were gone, but the ocean was every bit as warm as summer, so we went in every day. The sand was never scorching hot, so I could collect shells without destroying the soles of my feet. We enjoyed an excellent meal at my favorite wine bar, absent the martini-swilling tourists from Ohio that populate it during high season. Another culinary highlight: steamed crabs and fresh butter beans, both so good that we ate them again for lunch the next day.

As usual, there wasn't much activity beyond eating, drinking and walking, except reading on the beach. I finally finished the enormous biography of Arshile Gorky I'd started last month and made a nice dent in the V.S. Pritchett collection of lusty short stories I'd brought along.

And because the oddities of my life follow me wherever I go, I had one of my typical random conversations with a stranger while out walking on the beach first thing this morning.

Him: Good morning.
Me: Morning
Him: It's a beautiful morning, isn't it?
Me: Looks like it'll be another great day on the beach.
Him: You have a very sexy bottom, but I'm sure you get told that all the time.
Me: (!)
Him: Are you married?
Me: Yes.
Him: I wish I was.
Me: Good luck with that.

I may have even gotten a little September sun during my sojourn.

Take A Picture. It Lasts Longer.

Answer: You post a picture of yourself wearing the new t-shirt (perhaps t-dress would be more appropriate) on your blog and on Facebook in gratitude, then try to decide who to share the wine with.

Question: What's the proper response to receiving a surprise package in the mail from Walla Walla, containing a winery t-shirt (men's, size small) and a bottle of wine you've been lusting after for months, but couldn't afford on your unemployed pocketbook?