13 | August | 2006

It is Sunday and that means beach day. I wasn’t too sure about the shore though. From what Julio told me Stine doesn’t much care for it. ‘All we do is sit there’ she said via Julio. Still, I got up early and fetched the bagels and the papers and came back for the last weekend breakfast of the weekend. Bill wasn’t joining us again, he stayed up until 4:00AM trying to work on a back up for his laptop and it didn’t go too well. I got the call from Julio that the beach was a go. Bill lay in the bed all arms and legs akimbo and I gave him a nice peck on the forehead before I headed down the stairs to Julio and Stine by the open trunk of his car.

I put my beach bag in the trunk and we headed out of Hoboken towards the New Jersey Turnpike. Smooth sailing for us, thanks to my checking the traffic reports beforehand. The EZ Pass made things extra easy and we flew down. Of course there was a bump in the road, and that was a miscommunication of sorts between Julio and Stine. Someone needed to make up their mind fast as we were at a fork in the road, and they didn’t and feelings were hurt. Me, playing the role of ‘company’ bore witness to these hurt feeling which compounded the situation. All of a sudden it got cold from the back seat.

We went into the supermarket in Red Bank and bought the usual provisions. I seemed to have started a conversational relationship with the woman behind the counter who was telling me about seeing Cirque du Soliel last night in Philadelphia. I told her about entering a contest to see Cirque du Soliel in Las Vegas to see the Beatles Love show. Haven’t heard whether or not I won, but she thought I did and was super excited hear about what didn’t happen. I got my sandwich and talked to Julio and Stine separately on opposite sides of the salad bar. Julio was contrite, Stine was steaming. We headed back to the car silently and loaded the cooler.

In the car, I tried to lighten the mood by picking great songs from my iPod but it didn’t seem like any song that I played would’ve been appropriate, but still I kept trying. Let’s Stay Together by Al Green didn’t do it, My First, My Last, My Everything by Barry White fell by the wayside as well. My last attempt before driving around in circles in the parking lot across the street from the beach was a cover of Baby Can I Hold You (Sorry) by Foxy Brown, the dancehall singer, not the rap singer. What are the odds that both the Mr. and Mrs. Browns of Kingston, Jamaica and Flatbush, Brooklyn would both name their singing daughters, Foxy?

No matter. Stine kept to herself on the beach, while Julio and I tossed the Frisbee back and forth. I was able to engage her when I asked her to take some pictures and she did take some good shots. Despite Julio apologizing a few times, she was still distant to him, placing him on the couch in the doghouse. It was more of the same the whole ride back, no chat, no nothing. I’m sure they’ll work it out.

And here’s a color photo supplement for the Sunday edition.