Wish You Were Here

On Monday -- just three days from now -- Shae starts kindergarten. I KNOW. Didn't we just have her first birthday party like a week ago? They weren't messing around when they said time flies. Like, it was JUST Memorial Day, wasn't it? And now here we are, face to face, a couple of Silver Spoons ... WAIT. Wrong song.

ANYWAY. Shae and my sister and my niece and my parents and I played hooky on Wednesday and went to the beach, to soak up some sun and splash in the surf while we still can. (Also, we knew someone who was down there for the week, so we could stay overnight.) And you know what?

It was kind of a last-minute, game-time decision, but it was exactly the right one. It's funny how sometimes you don't realize how much you just need a mental-health, stress-relief, photosynthesizin' kind of day until you're in the middle of one and you're already 90+ pages into a book and you're sort of half sunk into the sand and you find yourself thinking, "Where has this place been all my life?"

And it was pretty much the perfect day off, too. Temps in the low 80's, low humidity, bright sunshine but not too hot, hardly anybody on the beach really, nice warm water, waves a little rough but nothing we couldn't handle. If you open the dictionary to "perfection," there is probably a picture of a day just like that.

I'm not the sort of person who normally just takes off on a Wednesday, just because, but you know what? I can be convinced.

Salty Piece Of Land

More pictures from the beach, because of reasons.

Boogie boarding: you're doing it wrong. And still, somehow, doing it right.

Shae says that at the next Olympics she's going to win first place in all the swimming events. I don't think she'll be ready for Rio in 2016, but maybe by 2024 she'll be the new Missy Franklin. And if that is the case, I hope that when Costas and company does a package on "how it all began," they include this picture.

Somebody is not sure whether 64°F is quite warm enough for civilized people. (Glad it wasn't just me.)

Now I really wish that I had put Shae in her suit that matches Makayla's. This is what I get for letting her pick her own clothes out - my perfect shot is ruined. RUINED.

We did a lot of jumping. Shae likes to jump. I hope she never discovers the pole vault, or we'll all be in trouble.

Those eyelashes KILL ME DEAD, every time.

It should be reassuring to me that EVERY.SINGLE.FAMILY.PICTURE. turns out like this, because it means it is not operator error, and yet. AND YET.

THOSE EYELASHES AGAIN. Gaaaah. Who do I need to speak to about an upgrade?

Knee Deep

This post needs a soundtrack, so here you go. (And bear in mind that this might be the only time you'll ever see me voluntarily linking to a country song, although technically I am only doing this because Jimmy Buffett is involved. Jimmy Buffett > everything.)

We went to the beach yesterday, for the first time all summer. I am decidedly A Beach Person, so it was like a kind of homecoming.

Except that I, personally, prefer coming home to ocean temperatures that are above 64°F. That is too cold for a mere mortal such as myself.

Shae, of course, had no such compunctions. There was A Whole Big Ocean there, and she was going to be in it for as much and as long as possible.

Getting up at 5am on a Sunday to schlep yourself and your husband and your five-year-old and a trunkful of beach-related gear and soggy sandwiches 2½ hours to New Jersey is not everybody's idea of a good time.

I can sit here and complain until the end of time, but the truth is, the beach is my happy place, my sacred space. My psychological reset button is a salty piece of land.

And already, we're making plans to go back. I have a final exam tonight and a paper due Wednesday, and then I have two weeks off before the fall semester starts. The state park where we like to go for our beach day trips is open all year.

We'll be back, as soon as possible, knee deep in the water somewhere. The Powerball jackpot is over $300 million, so maybe we can make the change in latitude permanent.

OLYMPICS FEVER! - Answers [May Contain Spoilers, Believe It Or Not]

Here's a refresher:

OH WAIT HOW DID THAT GET IN THERE? Here's the REAL refresher:

And here are the answers (which may contain spoilers, if you live under a rock or are watching the Olympics only in primetime like some kind of Luddite or something):

#1 = Mary Lou Retton. (1st woman on a Wheaties box!)
#2 = Greg Louganis. (Still and always my favorite.)
#3&4 = (L-R) Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh. (Just lost their first SET ever in Olympic play, still undefeated in matches.)
#5 = Michael Phelps. (Went went on to set a record for number of individual Olympic medals since I posted the original, plus JUST TODAY became the first man to win the same event - 200m IM - in three consecutive Olympics.)
#6 = Janet Evans. (I wanted to be her, until I realized that the 1500m is a VERY LONG SWIM.)
#7 = Ian "The Thorpedo" Thorpe. (From Australia. Adorable nickname. I am a sucker for puns.)
#8 = Mia Hamm Garciaparra. (Women's soccer FTW! Plus, she married Nomar, God bless her.)
#9 = Mark Spitz. (Who probably wishes he was Michael Phelps right now.)
#10 = Nadia Comăneci. (She of the first perfect 10 in the Olympics, in Montréal, and also adorable pigtails.)