Last week-end, friends offered us their Long Island, NY home. Jeff and I slept in their 7 year-old’s bunk beds. That was fun. Not since college, had I bottom-bunked. As many times as I’d sat up quickly in bed, there should be permanent grid marks on my forehead, from hitting the top bunk. (Womp! Owwwww, not again!) Top-bunking should’ve been a better choice. However, there are different hazards sleeping “upstairs”; the biggest being ladder navigation; the next rung’s never where you think it’ll be. When my foot finally hit Earth, a Martian-sounding Emoji pillow chirped, “HELLO!” I nearly wet my pants, which would’ve made the ladder trip a waste. My foot retracted; the Martian chirped, “GOODBYE!” By morning, the ascend/descend count was three. It felt like I’d attended a nocturnal YMCA boot-camp. I awoke to three American Girl Dolls, staring creepily at me. Next up: the bed-making and when you’re 5’3”, it’s not easy. I jumped and tugged, until someone taller, helped pull it together. The second night, I limited my descents to one and done, opting for the couch, after the first descent. “If the family’s gone, why didn’t you use the master bedroom?” you ask. Mom always told me, “That’s rude,” so, I can’t do that. I just cannot. Some lessons last a lifetime.
Saturday, we fished with friends in Point Lookout* Bay. Ahhhh, friends, boating, fun, sand, sun, sea, vodka and go-wits**. We fished for Fluke, a/k/a Flounder, which are flat as pancakes. (Oh, the joy of unplanned alliteration!) Their bellies are lightly-colored, like pancakes; their topsides are spotted brown. Both eyes are on top of the pancake. Not kidding. Its mouth is on the crease, so it can swim sidestroke – as opposed to butterfly- to gobble up bottom food. They’re so flat, that they couldn’t possibly have much of a brain, which explains how even I landed a bunch of these beasts, faster than Usain can bolt! Perhaps the flatness is why Flounder’s often served stuffed with crab meat. The stuffing enhances the Flounder, to look like she’s wearing a padded bra while presented on the plate. I know how she feels…
Later, we girls opted out of fishing, settling at the “Buoy Bar”. The kiddy beach is to the right of the dock; adults’ beach, to the left. As it should be. Not that we needed another fruity concoction, but an 11 year old (?) waiter, said some guys were sending us a round. We laughed, because we had not fished for attention and, besides, our ages spanned 25 – 61. Pubescent Patrick approached again, “To clarify, it’s the second table from the left; one guy’s wearing white.” Like we cared. Just bring us the drinks. Disappointingly, drinks never materialized and those schmucks*** had disappeared. The New York nerve! I’d bet there was a wager: “Yo, Roscoe, betcha we can get those babes to come talk wit (with) us!” (“Well, maybe, not the old one with the white hair and the one-piece swimsuit, but those other two…”) Some things are simply universal, like friends, fun and funny flukes. Both the fish and the fellows. bw
*Point Lookout, NY, a Hurricane Sandy casualty (2012), is now proud of rebuilt homes, businesses, docks and boats. Only an occasional empty lot remains.
**Go-wits: mixers, such as lemonade, tonic, soda, etc. We LoVe, LoVe, LoVe this eastern shore term.
***Schmuck: dufus, dweeb, douche bag.
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