Summer Wrap-up

The Bermuda cruise with Wil was nothing to write about.  There were a series of inconveniences, including his luggage getting lost (one of the risks we thought we were avoiding by not flying).  It eventually showed up, or, rather, we eventually took it upon ourselves to track it down after several calls to the people in charge yielded no real help.  There it was, with a few other bags, sitting outside a room on a lower deck.  How 2 sets of tags came off from drop off to ship, less than 1000 yards away, is beyond me 

We were disappointed in the ship itself, Royal Caribbean’s Enchantment of the Seas.  It was one of the smaller ships in their line and in need of updating.  There wasn’t much for us to do together on the ship:  he is 16—too old for the “teen” activities that are much for tweens and too young for adult amusements like gambling—even bingo was off limits for him.  We ended up walking around the ship for exercise and reading his summer reading assignments on my iPad from our room, and dining in the one nicer restaurant on the ship because the main dining room was noisy, crowded, and when we discovered that we were sitting with 6 strangers each night, we opted for table for two upstairs.  (The fact that the 6 other people didn’t’ show up the first night was a blessing—we really wanted dinner time to be for talking with each other.)

As is the case with Wil and I, we made the best of it, and enjoyed each other’s company.  We did enjoy the “excursion” to a beach in Bermuda and he liked the shopping in the port village.

Well, that feels like a lot of writing about something that isn’t worth writing about.

The rest of the summer was a blur.  Working through growing pains at the agency but came to good solutions that are being implemented now, just in time for what, knock wood, looks like a good wave of new accounts and extensions on existing ones.

Then there was the over-the-top week.  My sister’s husband Lenny went into the hospital on a Sunday morning so we were there by the afternoon.  It was serious at one point and the issues linger, but at least he’s home and seems to be improving.  (He’s got a chronic pain disorder that is wreaking havoc with his body for the last 15 years.  Most people with RSD don’t last nearly this long, the pain is beyond description, and it’s a daily issue.  On the 10-point pain scale he is off the scale without medication, a 6-10 with it.  In writing this, I don’t think I can describe my week I’m writing about as the week from hell.  I’ve rewritten the intro to this paragraph accordingly.)

So,, Lenny was in the hospital for a few days.  One of my favorite friends, Gerry, was diagnosed with cancer and was recovering from his first surgery (we were supposed to visit him that Sunday but rushed to Barnegat instead).  Then there was a 5.8 earthquake here, a rare occurrence here in NJ.  I missed it because I was driving but my son was home by himself and a bit freaked out, and I learned later that at the office, everyone rushed out and were shaken up—no pun intended.  (I know I can edit it out when I realize I made stupid pun, but this is me, I’m writing like I talk, and I make bad puns too often.)

As if the earthquake weren’t enough, it was followed by Hurricane Irene, which threatened to be a category 2.  By the time it reached NJ, it was a tropical storm.  What no one anticipated, at least, no one I knew was that the rains would soak our already very wet August beyond bearing and that every river, stream, creek, etc. would overflow.  That flooding caused power outages for over 800,000 utilities accounts across the state.  I’ve lived in NJ most of my life and have never been without power for more than a few hours.  40 hours later, our power came back on.  Some people were sill without power 5 days later.  The house was fine, no flooding here, but no power for 40 hours started to get to me.  I was a good sport for the first 24 hours, more or less, and Marc wen to the office and saw that it had power so that we could work on Monday, so it could have been a lot worse for us, but still, what a week.

So when Marc and I flew down to Hilton Head on the Thursday following the storm, we were ready for a vacation.  We had a major presentation to a potential client on the following Wednesday.  It was our second presentation to them, to a larger group, and I was worried that I wouldn’t have enough time to get everything done with a new executive starting on Tuesday.  As it turns out, it was raining on Sunday so we came back a day early, and drove the 12 hours.  That got me home in time to work 14 hours on Labor Day (and the presentation went VERY well).  But Thursday-Saturday in Hilton Head was one of the 3 best vacations I ever had.  We stayed at the Marriott, had an ocean view room, which meant there were about 200 yards between us and the ocean.  The water was as warm as bath water and I spent hours and hours boogie boarding and enjoying the whole experience.  I’m still thinking about it and would go back in a heart beat.  I found out that there are more direct flights to Savannah from Newark (4x per vs. 1) so going forward we’ll fly out of Newark.

We had meals at Alexander’s, Claude & Uli’s, and Crane’s Tavern.  Crane’s was the best and the others were good too.  Alexander’s had the nicest décor and ambiance.  Claude and Uli’s is in a strip mall.  It’s got really tasty French cuisine.  And Crane’s was amazing.  I had the most delicious lobster tails and Marc had scallops with cilantro pesto and a chili paste of some kind.  It was outrageous.  Oh, and my favorite cocktail, the Sidecar, was confusing to the bartender at Crane’s (it was awful, I switched to something else), mediocre at Alexander’s, and kick-ass and world class at Claude and Uli’s.

So, it was a great summer on the personal side of things, and autumn is off to a good start.  I am missing the family cruise but am excited that on Wednesday I am being inducted into the NJ Ad Club Hall of Fame—if I’d been on the cruise I would have missed that, and again, there is so much going on with potential business, I would have been a basket case trying to enjoy the cruse knowing what I was missing on the business side of things.

Wil has been looking at colleges in California—he’s interested in computer animation and design.  Rachel is having a good semester so far at NYU Tisch.  Full steam ahead.