Ocean's Eleven

After the madness of New York City, we were ready for a break, so we joined Kim’s family for a few days at her grandparents’ beach house in Ocean City, New Jersey. BY the time we got there, the house already had Kim’s grandparents, her parents, her two brothers and her one sister-in-law, so the addition of two extra bodies to the two bedroom, one bathroom house was of course just what the doctor ordered.

It didn’t matter too much, as we tended only to all be inside when we were either eating or sleeping. The rest of the time was spent enjoying the coastline of the Atlantic Ocean. Strangely enough the Ocean City Municipal government seems to think it’s okay to make people pay to go to the beach. As an Australian I was outraged at the very notion, but the locals assured me it was a completely normal practice. In any case, we largely ignored it as we only had three beach permits (the very cheek) between the lot of us and it didn’t stop us for a second. Viva la revolution!

We tried out boardwalks in a number of locations, including the vastly over-rated Atlantic City boardwalk. It was basically identical to the Ocean City boardwalk, but with less shops where you could buy hermit crabs.

On our last day in Ocean City we were visited by Kim’s great aunt Ruthie, who came to teach us a few things about card games. Actually, based on her success rate, I suspect she may have been making it up as she went along. Who calls a card game Pea Knuckle in the first place?

Aunt Ruthie makes ten. Ten oughta do it, don’t you think? You think we need one more? You think we need one more. Alright, we’ll get one more.

Um… after Aunt Ruthie departed we were visited by a Bulgarian aristocrat named Miroslav who had been on a pilgrimage from Stara Zagora to Barcelona and had got a bit lost. Well… very lost. We pointed him in the right direction and he… swam off into the distance. Kim and I jumped in the car instead and headed back towards Cincinnati.

Make of that what you will.




Garry with 2 Rs