A day by the sea…

A day by the sea…

A funny thing happened on Sunday. I realized that with two-thirds of the year gone, I needed to use up some vacation days. I get 3 weeks (15 days) and I don’t use’em, I lose’em. Yeesh.

So on Sunday night, I conferred with Mom and we decided to go to the shore either Tuesday or Wednesday — whichever day looked to be nicer.

Which appeared to be today. Both weather.com and our local news said that it’d be sunny and in the low 80s today.

It was soooooo decadent sleeping in! I got my oil changed at Lube Works (the ION had been nagging me for the last 3.5 weeks) first. Took only 15 minutes, and now the ION is happy and has quit binging at me whenever it feels my presence.

Then, at 1:00, we headed to Ocean City. I love sitting on the beach. Seeing the majesty of the ocean makes all things seem small. And ever since I was small, I’ve been in love with the idea of sitting on the very edge of the continent. Unfortunately, it was damp, windy and cold. Eighty degrees my foot!

But we didn’t care. Mom and I perused Hairstyle magazines (hair solution: natural color “lowlights” to be put in my hair to cure brassiness and emphasize the blonder streaks, grow hair longer, but get bangs cut in…appointment set for 9/3) and our books. (Mine: Eats, Shoots and Leaves). We munched Cool Ranch Doritos and caught up. I see Mom on a regular basis, but life leaves us little time to really *talk* about what’s going on.

After a while, we hit the boardwalk. Two slices of pizza later, we passed an arcade with a dance machine. This one wasn’t DDR…it was called “Extreme” and instead of North-South-East-West squares, it had Northeast-Northwest-Southwest-Southeast-Center squares. Mom wanted to give it a whirl (Does YOUR Mom do arcade dance games? I think not!) but I was a bit wary. I can look like an epileptic chimpanzee (thanks, R, for that phrase!) at home or with friends, but in public?

What the heck…you only live once. So Mom and I danced and hopped our way through. Did we draw a crowd? Probably…I couldn’t tell. But I was warm from my head to the tips of my toes by the time we were done. It was a lot of fun — glad I did it. And I got a decent score too!

Hit Starbucks on the way home (supporting my stock portfolio). And now I sit and wonder — what awaits me at work tomorrow? And why have I waited so long to take vacation days during the week?