Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot

Boy, these last few weeks have been busy, busy, busy! I've been driving here and there, thither and yon. Ray and I drove to PA to do some repairs on the shop at the Ren Faire. I drove to CT to see my cousin, my aunt who was visiting, and my little baby cousin, Samantha. I got to see my brother briefly as he flew into NY for freshman orientation at NYU. Although he was a little trepidacious before he went in, he was much more relaxed and happy when he left two and a half days later. I really only got to see him on the way to and from the airport, but I was happy to have that time to chat. I'll hopefully be seeing him much more when school starts!

Well, now that the Lord of the Rings Symphony is over, I'm feeling much less stressed. I had a lot more fun this year than I did last year. I go the solo again, and that made me happy. But the best part about the whole thing is that Ray came to see it. He hasn't come to see me perform in years (no, the weddings don't count; he's there as my date), and he said I sounded wonderful. I felt good about it, which is more than I can say for last year's performance. And I think a lot of that had to do with Markus Huber, the conductor, who is simply fabulous. He's a true musician, and though I was a little disappointed that he missed a few plot points from the movie when explaining it to us, he more than made up for it by understanding the essence of the piece. It was certainly a pleasure to sing under his baton.

In the meantime, it's sweltering hot here in NJ. A thunderstorm the other day took out the electricity in a whopping two block radius, and it took the electric company all night to figure out how to fix it. With the AC off and all the fans not working, even the darkness wasn't cool enough to keep tempers in check, and it got pretty tense here at Casa de la Maren. A trip to Friendly's for some ice cream was in order, and then after that a nice, romantic walk along the riverfront in Burlington in front of the gorgeous colonial mansions. It was 11:30 by the time we got back home, but we were both calmer, and I was ready to go to sleep.

All's well that ends well, though, because sometime around midnight the power came back on, so the AC went back on in our room and I passed out. Ray, on the other hand, was still awake and wandering the house, resetting clocks and making sure all the lights were turned off. I'm not sure he slept very much at all that night, because the next morning, he was dead tired and still a little cranky. It's just amazing what temperature does to a person's emotions, isn't it?

Stupid Humor

So we just got back from our annual visit to the Shore. Yes, "Shore" has to be capitalized. For those of you who are not from NJ/PA, the Shore actually refers the shore of New Jersey, or the Jersey Shore. Never mind that 31 states have a shore of some sort, 25 of them being on an ocean or gulf. No, no: around here, the Shore is the place to go in the summertime. Just watch any of the Kevin Smith movies; the Shore is where everything in New Jersey happens in the summer. Any time the weather gets nice, everybody in the whole state goes to the shore. At least that's what it seems like when you hear the traffic report.

We usually go once a year to our friend's beach house. His family owns the place and rents it by the week during the summer, and every year he gets to have it for a few days to do with as he pleases. And it pleases him to invite his friends and barbecue and have a grand old time.

So we went, grilled, sat around, read, sat around some more, went into town to shop and go to the arcade (which really sucks these days, due to the fact that they've overrun the place with stupid slot machines), and sat around some more. I didn't think I would ever say this, but my ass is really tired of all that sitting around. I got bored really quickly, mostly due to the fact that I brought the wrong books to read. I meant to bring Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix with me (which I hadn't read), and instead, I brought Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire (which I'd already read). So a lot of the first day was spent twiddling my thumbs while everyone went to the beach.

Why didn't I go to the beach, you ask? For one, there weren't enough beach passes to go around, and I didn't feel like paying for one. Secondly, I have no swimsuit as it makes me really depressed to go swimsuit shopping (I really need to start working out). Thirdly, Ray doesn't like to go on the beach because he says you get sand in places you didn't even know you had places before. I tend to agree with him on that point, so we opted to stay in. And I was very bored.

The second day I managed to annoy Ray enough to make him take me into town so I could buy some books. That kept me happy for the rest of the weekend. And at the end of our stay there, one of our friends pulled out a game that I really like a lot, which is Munchkin, a non-collectible card game that spoofs games like D&D and Magic. It's hilarious! Playing that game was the best part of the weekend, by far.

The 4th of July fireworks weren't as good as last year. We went out by the bay between Long Beach Island and the mainland, and couldn't see much because of heavy cloud cover. It was a little eerie, though, watching the fireworks go up into the cloud and explode, turning the clouds different colors.

We drove home after the fireworks were over, and fell asleep, exhausted. This morning (yes, we took an extra day off...we're such rebels!) we decided to watch a movie one of our friends recommended: The Lost Skeleton of Cadavera. It's kind of a send-up of those 1950's sci-fi horor flicks, and it is pretty funny. If you liked Amazon Women on the Moon, you'll definitely like this. There's a lot of stupid humor in it, and every once in a while, I really like stupid humor. If any of you ever saw or were a part of my directorial debut/farewell, Money, Power, Murder, Lust, Revenge, and Marvelous Clothes, you know I like stupid humor.