It’s been a while, so maybe that wasn’t the best place to start. A lot has happened since last November (has it really been that long?!?) It gives you the flavor, though.

Probably the biggest news is that I have a niece – Mr. and Mrs. Nature Boy decided to reproduce, and although I pointed out to Nature Boy that they were making people, and was that really a good idea for them?, they proceeded to create a beautiful baby girl with a beautiful name – Shea Marie – who has replaced us all as my parents’ favorite. Shea is just a few weeks old now, and changing by the day per the photos my brother generously provides. Nature Boy tells me that they change her by the hour, which is the one thing guaranteed to make her angry, but he says he just puts her in the basement on newspapers when she cries, so it’s all good. We’re all tremendously excited about her, and I’m really looking forward to giving her things her parents don’t want her to have.

Closer to home, I spent the summer working two jobs, since my counterpart in our other NJ company resigned in May and I was asked to “cover” till they could find a replacement. The replacement started last week. Thank God. The commute was killing me (about 70 minutes in classic NJ traffic – bumper to bumper at 80 miles per hour, except when it was completely stopped) and the staff issues up there were, well, trying. My bosses gave me a nice little bonus in August to thank me for my efforts, and my fingers are crossed they also think fondly of me this coming March when the annual bonuses are computed.

In September, I drowned the Passat. This occurred on the last day of my family annual Long Beach Island vacation, when we got 8 inches of rain in 2 hours and my father decided we needed to leave in the middle of it. Loading the car got us soaked despite the Hefty bags we were wearing, and as we pulled out into the roadway, we crossed 5 inches of water to get to the main road, not really thinking it would get worse than that. It got worse. We were all separated in the traffic, and I ended up following a truck toward the causeway, figuring that if I could stay in his wake, I’d be out of the deep water. Wrong. I ended up on the bay side of the island, in a residential area, and as I made the turn onto Bay Avenue to continue heading south, I found myself in about sixteen inches of water – enough to flood the interior had I opened the door. Completely at a loss, I stared at my cell phone wondering who to call until I heard a knock on my window. I rolled it down to see a local surfer, who asked if I wanted him to push my car up onto the median. “Can you do that?” I asked doubtfully, and was told he certainly could, and he did. Then he invited me into his house to wait out the storm, which I considered briefly, but as I don’t ever plan to put any lotion into any basket, I declined. The Ewe called to say her car was flooded, too, and she had been rescued by a cop in pickup, and she was sending him my way, and where was I? I didn’t know, and Surfer Dude happily supplied the information since he had opted to stand on the median and talk to me rather than going back into his nice dry house. Mike the Cop came by and welcomed me into his truck, and took me back to where my family stood huddled on the sidewalk. We headed back to the rental house in Dad’s minivan, where one look in the mirror told me why Surfer Dude and Mike the Cop were so friendly – I looked like a contestant in the Long Beach Island Wet T-Shirt contest. The Ewe’s car was in far worse shape than mine – we had to bail the interior with little sand buckets – and was eventually pronounced totaled by her insurance company. My car had $4 thousand worth of engine damage, and my claims guys advised me strongly to dump it, as it’s going to have real rust problems in a couple of years. So now I’m driving a nifty little white BMW X3, and I have to say that the small SUV experience is really fun. Plus, if it ever floods around here, I’m not so worried.

A couple of weeks later, I ventured back to Pennsylvania to see my new niece and have dinner with my parents, The Ewe, and assorted aunts and uncles who were in town for an anniversary party. As we finished up dinner, I heard my cell phone play Dutch’s theme song, and answered it to discover he was keen to go out that night and when would I be home? It was only eight o’clock, so I gave him ten as an ETA, which I actually hit. Having been everywhere in Red Bank (a few times), we opted to cab it down to Asbury Park to see what was happening there. We ended up at The Circuit, a gay-friendly dance club that was surprisingly unpopulated for a Saturday night. So we danced, and drank, and danced some more, and then were overwhelmed by the scent of popcorn from the adjoining gay bar. As Dutch had instructed me to go get us some, I wandered in and immediately wondered how many cows had died to clothe the current group of patrons. The bad news was that the bartender wouldn’t give me popcorn to take out, so I had to bring Dutch in. I give Dutch a lot of credit here – he viewed the gay bar as sort of a tourist experience, and even hung in there when the guy started pole dancing up on the bar. (He actually seemed to feel that I would enjoy seeing that. This underlines a key difference between men and women that we can explore another time.) When the lap dance started, though, it was time to go. As I put it to Dutch, what had happened? There I was, having a nice, wholesome family day, holding my new niece, visiting with my parents, having dinner with aunts and uncles, and now I found myself in a gay bar watching a lap dance. According to Dutch, the problem was that I had gone out with him, a fair point.

Back in our dance club, we chatted with Tracy the bartender and learned that her mother, Rose, tends bar at the Red Bank Elks Lodge. Tracy was a fantastic bartender, and after tipping her generously, we headed out to a seaside hotel down the block which had a club inside that was larger, louder, and even more gay-friendly than where we had just been. We found an outdoor bar near a pool that was relatively calm, and it felt like attending a party in Miami, minus the palm trees. We could even smell the breeze off the ocean. Eventually, it dawned on us that it had become quite late, and we called a cab for home.

Which is how we ended up in the Elks Lodge last Thursday. The evening began as expected – I was home, contemplating a trip to the gym, when my cell phone rang and Dutch announced he had been working in Newark all day and was coming home, and we should go out. So after I picked him up at the train station, we headed to Red for a couple of drinks and then, in a moment of delirium, decided to wander over to the Elks Lodge to look up Rose.

You can’t get into the Elks Lodge unless you’re an Elk, which neither of us were, so we were a little nervous about going in. Someone saw us standing at the glass door, though, and opened the door for us, where I tentatively said we were looking for Rose, and was she there? She was, and when we said we had met Tracy and she’d sent us, Rose welcomed us with open arms, the Grand Poobah bought our first round, and we were off to the races.

The Elks Lodge is located in prime Red Bank real estate, right on the Navesink River and next to Marine Park. Outside, it’s a neat red brick building with a pristine flag flying and a swept-clean sidewalk. Inside, it’s sort of like the basement at Sts. Philips and James church where I grew up – linoleum tiled floor, formica bar edged with wood, and cobwebs in the tiny unisex bathroom. The vodka is Smirnoff’s and the beer is Bud. The bar is not crowded, and nobody’s wearing black; as my father would say, it’s a place of “the people.”

Dutch and Rose soon engaged in conversation, whereas I was quickly cornered by a red-faced Scotsman wearing a trucker’s cap, dirty jeans, and a plaid shirt. He wanted me to touch the material of his jeans and shirt (as he felt they were of high quality) and wanted to then touch the material of my skirt to see if it was real silk – which  I vetoed – and he proceeded to regale me with various tales of…. I honestly don’t remember. I blame myself for prolonging the conversation, as I actually volunteered something more than “uh huh” at one point and this seemed to encourage him. (He commented that there was really no difference between small game hunting and deer hunting, and I mildly pointed out that for one you really want a shotgun, whereas for the other you’d need a .30-06, and why, oh why, can I never resist the urge to indicate I know a little bit, but just a little bit, about guns?? I blame myself.) Attempts to disengage, including a direct “I’m going to go watch those guys play liar’s poker for a while” failed miserably, and I eventually just got up, walked over to Dutch, and interrupted his conversation long enough to tell him we needed to go home. Somewhere during the evening, I had apparently been sponsored by a couple of the Elks and had enrolled. I’ll be interested to see what kinds of mailing lists I end up on.

I’m sure those aren’t all the highlights, but that’s top of mind for now. I’m not sure yet what’s going on this week…. But I’m thinking it’s probably a good idea to avoid alcohol for a while. I can’t afford any more membership dues.

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