Overdue post. A rainy August day at Bethany Beach, Delaware.

Beach reading 2012.

August 22 or 23 at Sussex Shores in North Bethany Beach.

Why so few people, you ask?

We rented the house that you can just barely see the top of -- behind the red kayak. I didn't realize it was on a private beach. Not sure how I felt about that. A little too 1% for me (but we did agree that it was wonderful to hear and see the ocean from the house, and to have immense privacy on the beach...should I feel guilty about that?).

Here are some mini-reviews of books I read at the beach.

The Fabulist (Stephen Glass): A journalist who, in real life, fabricates dozens of news stories for The New Republic magazine, and gets caught and fired, writes a "novel" about his downfall but never explains why he did it. Disappointing and embarrassing.

Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (Jamie Ford): Story set in Seattle, with chapters bouncing back and forth between 1942 and 1986, about Japanese and Chinese immigrants, with special focus on Japanese internment camps. Love story with a sweet, some might say too sweet, ending. Nicely written but has numerous errors -- like a character who in 1986 joins an online support group. 1986? I don't think so.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Shirley Jackson): Wonderful writing, quirky gothic story about a nutty family with lots of secrets. Loved it. But it took days to get the creepy feeling out of my head.

The Unfortunates (Laurie Graham): Light, slightly comic novel set mostly in New York between 1912 and the 1970s. Graham is a British writer whose novels are snicker-funny, clever, and weave history with fiction. I will read everything she writes.

The Edge of the Pier (Martha Grimes): I tried. I really tried. But the first 50 pages of this novel were among the worst 50 pages I've ever read in a novel. How did this woman sell so many books?? I was very excited when I learned that Ms. Grimes set five of her novels in a real city in western Maryland very near to where my mother grew up. So I ordered four of the books. Pee-yew! 

The Grace of Silence: A Memoir (Michele Norris): I borrowed this library book based on the title alone (I'm trying to be silently graceful these days, with mixed results). Book was wonderful but sometimes painful to read. The wounds caused by racism in this country are hard to face. We'd be a better society if everyone read this book.

Two recent trips: 3 hours, 19 mins to the west and we're at my sister's house. 3 hrs and 1 min to the east and we're at Bethany Beach. Both trips wonderful.

Bottom two pictures are from Bethany Beach, Delaware, last week. Weather was perfect. I swam with the fishes. (Those are people on stand-up surf boards -- the proper name of which I cannot remember at the moment.)  Top two pictures are going through (literally) and over the mountains to my sister's house on the Potomac in Western Maryland a week earlier.  I love her patio!  She let wildflowers grow freely between the flagstones and they look fabulous. She planted what she thought was chamomile but what grew turned out to something else.

Another visit to the Delaware shore, across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and through the MD-DE farmland.

The little anonymous boy in the surf -- about 10 I'd say -- wasn't the only one braving the April waters. It was a perfect Spring day on Saturday. Next scheduled trip is in August, far enough away that I might be able to shave off some of my Berger cookie hips so I can don a bathing suit with minimal wincing. And everywhere I go I see wisteria.

Daughter and surprise grand-kittens.

Yeah, they're cute as all get out, but I'm not so sure I'm happy about this. The list of reasons why she shouldn't have taken in these tiny strays while she was at the beach (Quogue, Long Island) is long. She was there for just 3 days, and when she called me the first day and reported that some adorable kittens had adopted her I knew trouble was ahead. The second day she called and reported that she was bringing them back with her to Manhattan (on the bus from LI and the subway once in the city), where she would take them to a no-kill shelter. Her lease is up in 2 weeks and she's looking for a new apartment (see what I mean?), and her thought was that after she gets into the new apartment (the one she hasn't found yet) she would go back to the shelter to see if the babies were still there. By the third and last day of her visit, her phone call was a timid and very polite suggestion that we take in the kittens. Just until she gets settled, at which point they would ride back up to NY with her boyfriend. (Still with me? It's not a very interesting story.) For once, I said no. Our girls are just a year old, I don't know what the little ones may have, and of course I would have to take them to a vet, etc etc. It all worked out because my daughter's boyfriend's parents, who live in No. Virginia, agreed to take them. But I'm still not sure it's such a good idea. And I must remember to offer to help with the vet bills. After all, it's my daughter who caused all this in the first place.

I think this entire little story just means that she's ready (mentally, psychologically, emotionally) to have babies. My brain won't go there. Too scary.

[I don't think my daughter reads my blog, I'm not even sure she knows it exists, but just in case: love you sweetie and when you have human babies I'll love them just as much.]

The Atlantic shoreline in Delaware and one pretty fantastic sunset.

We spent a week at Delaware's Bethany Beach and it was great as always. The surf was rough most days, but the last night we were there it got pretty calm. That's Doug walking pensively along the shore.

I was brave and swam most days. It didn't used to take bravery but it takes strength to go out (and get back in) these days. Delaware does "beach replenishment" quite often. Sand is dredged up from offshore and deposited on the beaches to keep them built up enough for human use. It seems like such a losing (and expensive) battle but I'd be a complete hypocrite to complain about it since we visit this beach every year. One opinion holds that all that digging and dumping has changed the character of the shoreline. Years ago, before dredging, the shoreline tapered out more into the ocean. There were breakers far out, and you could walk quite a way out before the water got deep. You know, a natural mid-Atlantic coastline. Now, you can only walk out several yards before there's a sudden drop off and you can't touch the ocean floor. That change in the slope also makes the waves big (I think).

I think this is an immature great black-backed gull. (Try saying that real fast.) At the Delaware shoreline yesterday.

I'm never cold. Or rarely cold. But this winter is whupping my ass. I loved being at the ocean, I fantasized about being in the water and I thought ahead to our traditional week at the beach. But manohman the cold took my breath away yesterday.

The Delaware shore looked like this every single day last week.

Doesn't get much better. Swam in the ocean every day. It's my annual religious ceremony.

Sunrise at Bethany Beach, DE. Saturday morning.

Summer Solstice on the Delaware Shore.