last days of summer

 

the last days of summer look a lot like this. fresh veggies. specifically from my aunt's garden. riding bikes. specifically with my giant baby brother on my old roommate's tiny bike. drinking wine in the park. specifically spodee, an 18% red wine mixed with moonshine that leaves a tootsie roll after taste and comes in an old milk bottle. 

i'm ready to usher the first days of summer in though. pumpkin flavored things. specifically pumpkin and spinach mac'n'cheese. riding bikes. specifically in pants, while not sweating profusely. drinking wine in the park. specifically in boots and jackets and under wool blankets. maybe we'll even upgrade to mulled cider. 

oh seasons. you never cease to amaze me. i need all four of you in my life, forever.

the journey to nu hempstar: part c

 

then we went out! on the town! specifically, a beach town. chrissy took us to a trashy beach bar but made the mistake of walking me past the arcade on our way in. as soon as i saw those neon lights i was itching to get my skeeball on. we stuck around for one drink and got hit on by some creepy dudes before we decided to bounce and hit up the arcade. score one for caitlin.

we all got our skee ball on and set our sights on a prize - the harmonica. i went back to inform the posse that we were still short fifty tickets and some young man in a suit (what?) came up and gave me all his tickets. it was just like an episode of touched by an angel. i almost wept on the spot. we got our harmonica and beth said it sucked because it only played three notes and you couldn't breathe in the make a sound but she is a hater and i recognized the magic of the harmonica that was made possible by the kindness of strangers.

then we got photobooth pictures!

then we went to a bar that looked like somewhere freddy prinze jr. frequented in 1999 - low ceilings, all white, with blue ocean-y lights everywhere. their clinetele was all over 40 divorcees but they had a swinging band and we got smoking patron shots. bliss bliss bliss.

the next morning was full of brunch and good byes, followed by another crazy long car ride. but it was a beautiful beautiful weekend in the most summery fantasyland of all time, the ever lovely, new hampshire.

these colors don't run. (they walk briskly.)

 i signed up a for a 5k.

like an idiot.

 i am not a running person. i am not one of those people who enjoys it as a spiritual experience during which i am one with my body. when i run, it is for survival purposes. i am being chased or my meter is almost out and my car is in danger of being ticketed. that is how running factors into my life.

but there was a deal on groupon for the color me rad 5k. and i mentally kept blocking out those two final characters. the '5' and the 'k'. i just kept thinking about the color. and the out-dated use of the word rad. and before i knew it, i was signed up.

i planned to practice. to train a little each day until i had a wonderful sports montage style breakthrough where i found myself and found my passion and had washboard abs.

this did not happen.

i did nothing to practice. drank two smoothies the night before. that was my training. but on the day of the race, dressed in white with some douche-y sunglasses and the sneakers i hardly ever wear, i was blessed to discover that my running mates were also not so into running. we had to duck under the yellow tape they were using to close off the starting line because we were too slow to begin with. from then on, we alternated between walking briskly and jogging slowly while complaining. beth jogged at a somewhat glacial pace consistently throughout, so the real props go to her. the more important part: we all ended up covered in colored corn starch. one woman threw some in my face when i wasn't expecting it and my teeth were purple for a few kilometers. at the end, everyone gets their own packet of color and they throw it all over the place. it was magical and fun and colorful and impossible to wash off and guaranteed that we would get one million strange looks at brunch.

and in conclusion, i will never run another 5k again.

BOARDWALK

 

 things that i did with my parents and brother at the boardwalk:
- insisted on squeezing all four of our grown asses into a photobooth. i will have none of these modern your-face-in-a-sketched-heart-or-an-outlaw-frame nonsense. i like the old school machines that give you black and white strips that still smell like eggs. getting us all in/out of the booth was extremely challenging. i might have laid on the floor of the arcade.
- played some skeeball!
- watched my mom challenge my brother to every game of hot shot we passed. helen is a pro - she pretty much always trumps, though drew does put up a good fight. they literally played five games. helen is an addict. she was scraping through her coin purse to scrounge up those last couple quarters. homegirl needs an intervention.
- got ice cream! my mom accidentally pointed to the chocolate sprinkles when i specifically requested the rainbow sprinkles- a completely unacceptable situation.  i yelled 'no you jerk!' and the poor ice cream man looked up, hurt. i quickly clarified, 'no! not 'you jerk' her jerk.' i am twenty two. and a college graduate. and yet, these situations are still occuring.
- got scared of all the obnoxious preteens on the boardwalk and their neon half shirts.


caitlin love boardwalk.

beach house board games

 

best thing about beach house: it's not yo' house.
other best thing about beach house: WEIRD BOARD GAMES IN THE CLOSET.

this game is called "therapy: the game!"
it is so hard to play. and so very weird. and most of the statistics involved in the questions are from the late '70s or early '80s and are probably not relevant anymore. we struggled with this game. we also thought the rules were too long so we didn't read them. that might have contributed to the aforementioned struggling. some beverages were also consumed - lots of factors in the struggling here.

my favorite question is pictured at the bottom. spring it on them over the pepperoni. i would love to get that on a vanity plate. in a perfect world. with no character limits.

the extreme sadness of being a lady turtle

 

this is a turtle we met at the beach. she walked all the way from the ocean, up to the dunes, dug a hole with her little back lags and laid some eggs. then she covered it up and walked back to the ocean. she's a diamond back turtle. when here babies hatch, they'll go into the ocean. they'll never meet their mom and she'll never meet them, but the girl babies will go back to the same spot on the same dune and lay their eggs too.

all of these facts were told to us by some eleven year old boy who was also watching the turtle. he has a pet turtle, so i trust his judgement. she moved slowly but purposefully as she went through the process. and it seriously bummed me out that she's never going to meet her babies. even though that's a nature thing and it's supposed to happen that way. it's still a bummer. and it made me glad i'm not a turtle. even though they're amazing.

my love/hate relationship with the beach

 

this post should more accurately be titled, 'my love/hate relationship with the sun'.

 things i love about the beach:
- the boardwalk
- skee ball on the boardwalk
- riding surreys (with or without a fringe on top. preferably with.)
 - eating cider donuts while racing other people on surreys
- drinking on the beach (shh! don't tell the law!)
- photobooths
 - salt water taffy
- wearing weird hats
- salt water hair
- reading books in the sand
- taking naps in the sand

 things i hate about the beach:

 - THE SUN AND THE HEINOUS SUNBURNS IT GIVES MY FRAGILE NEAR-ALBINO SKIN.

dear sweet baby jesus! it never stopppssssss. maybe when i'm 23 i will magically wake up and be able to go in the sun for five minutes sand sunscreen before turning the color of ronald mcdonald's hair.

i understand that we need the sun. helps plants grow blah blah. vitamin d blah blah. perhaps more accurately, i should say i hate the sunscreen application process. it takes a solid twenty minutes for me to grease up and it's exhausting. by the time i have all these stupid grease all rubbed in, i just want to take a nap. and inevitably, i will go to the beach and have to reapply, this time, rubbing it in over top of the sand that's clinging to my body.

and somehow, in some magic way, i still end up getting sunburnt.

 i hope i am reincarnated as a tan person. or that technology makes it possible for me to not loathe the sun.

my heart belongs to knoebels

 

oh knoebels.  you beautiful, strange little amusement park. you do not have super-power loop-de-loop roller coasters or state-of-the-art anything, yet you are my all time favorite amusement park. i think it's because of the trees. you're so green and lush and your rides are so kitschy and wonderful. plus, you're operating on a ticket system, which means i can drive up on a whim with two friends, drop $9 for a ticket book, ride all my favorite rides, split a sundae and some chicken fries then get back on the road. you're perfect in that way. i have to do the roller coasters of course, first the twister, with your hands up the entire time, then the phoenix which is more difficult to ride with your hands up because you're constantly flying out of your seat. even as a twenty-two year old with a beer belly, you still shoot up on the little hills (something you probably assumed you'd grow out of when you passed puberty.) then we move on to the haunted mansion, which might not actually be that scary, but at this point it's so old that it probably is haunted and you start to psych yourself out and get spooked. you insist on smashing all three of your grown-ass bodies into the tiny cart and you scream and claw at each other the entire time as if the plastic mutants might actually come for you this time. then we move on to the cosmatron, the ride i could live on if someone told me that i had to live on a ride. (not sure what those circumstances would be, but regardless, i have my answer.) it's indoors and it's spinning and you crush the person on the outside. and if you're my friends, you yell the lyrics to the song and try your best to dance along while not totally smashing into the outside person. you also try to avoid being the outside person in the first place. then i buy some peanuts for my dad, get chicken fries and squirt out condiments with the weird udders, and finish it off with a hot fudge sundae under the slow spinning pavilion tops. if the photo booth is working, you have to get a photo strip too. 

everything at knoebels is bright and bold and sunny. i love climbing to the top of a hill on the twister and looking out at the greenery of the surrounding mountains. i love walking in the shade between the rides. i love the little cabins that sit on either side of the bridge as you cross into the park. universal is fun and hershey always has something new, but knoebels keeps it real. and it doesn't quite feel like summer until i've been there.

slim pickin'

 

  there is nothing more summery and perfect than picking fruit. my grandparents used to have a blueberry bush in their backyard and after spending an afternoon swimming in their pool or picnicking under the willow tree in their side yard, my grandma might give me a little green container to take to the blueberry bush and fill up.

i haven't picked any fruit since then and a few weeks ago my friend jonah suggested going to pick strawberries. my roommates beth and keiran joined and we trekked half an hour outside of the city to linvilla farms. with visions of sweet summer berry picking, we all dressed completely inappropriately for the weather. it ended up being super chilly - so much so that keiran and beth grabbed some makeshift winter wear from my car to warm up (keiran actually has a rug around her shoulders.) we picked strawberries and cherries, ate probably twice as many as we actually picked, and made faces at the thousands of babies who were also there picking berries. seriously. berry picking is prime baby watching turf.

when we got back we made strawberry salads and a strawberry crumble and strawberry pancakes and then bagged up the rest and froze 'em. i'm hoping to make some strawberry balsamic jam later today - seems like a worthy use.

harrisburg house tour

 

 harrisburg house tour does not disappoint. especially when you combine all your philly roommates with your parents friends and allow them to day drink over an eight hour period of time. beautiful, magical things happen.