Indulge!

	Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus
Main Entry:	luxuriate
Part of Speech:	verb
Definition:	To take extravagant pleasure.
Synonyms:	bask, revel, roll, rollick, wallow

In looking back on our vacation, it occurs to me that the word “Indulge”, especially as defined above, pretty much sums up the modus operandi of all involved. We had seven days of perfect beach weather, and all that stood between us and blistering sunburn were hundreds scores of many cans of spray-on sunblock.

We shared a house with two other families, so it was seven adults (three couples and a grandma) and eight kids ranging in age from two to 14. Yes, were were playing zone. We’re all way above average cooks, so even the gargantuan task of preparing food for 15 people was enjoyable, even if the kitchen would’ve been too small at twice its size.

Our days were spent consuming coffee while cooking breakfast, then trying to rally the crew and all the essential paraphernalia to head to the beach, setting up the beach encampment, sitting on the beach, swimming, digging in the sand, more sitting, then dragging all of the people and STUFF back to the house, taking a dip in the pool, competing for hot water for showers, washing beach towels, then declaring it “happy time” (as the four-year-old called happy hour), preparing and eating dinner, cleaning up after dinner, shoo-ing the wee ones into bed, then collapsing into an exhausted heap. (Not all of us together in a heap – lots of little separate heaps. Shut up, you know what I meant.)

Sometimes, fun is Hard Work.

We tried to see how much recycling we could generate many cases of beer could be consumed in seven days. I’m a little embarassed to share that the equation was something like this:

Beer Equation

Um, yeah. But we were indulging! We were reveling! It was downright convivial! Dude, we were partyin’.

But don’t think for a minute that the aluminum can collection ended with Miller Lite. No, the kids had their own Special Project, and it made us shudder to think that perhaps we were being given a glimpse of our future, for on the middle level of our house, where the kids’ rooms (and, sadly, poor Grandma) were, was a living area that included two sofas, a TV, and a foosball table. (Mama Boucher: “No son of mine is gonna play any foos-ball!”) And the kids drank their way through I don’t know how many cases of soda, and collected the cans and, much like the ancient Egyptians, fashioned them into a giant pyramid on the coffee table in that room, which I began calling KAPPA GAMMA SQUALOR. (The room, not the table or the pyramid.)

Not only that, but another tradition we have is CRAZY FREEZE POP WEEK, where the children unite as a group in diligently working their way through consuming a HUGE BOX frozen sugar water encased in plastic tubes. (And you can probably imagine how many of those tubes end up in the trash can as a result of a child’s extra effort.)

But the kids were SAFE and HAPPY and really, that’s what matters.

Another highlight was piling too many people into two 4WD vehicles and careening driving a few miles up the 4×4 beach for a day of frolic on what amounts to a highway, because the drive-on beach is way more crowded now than it ever used to be, and where once we used to be able to find a remote slice of sand and tailgate, now we have to wedge in between the mini-poser-SUVs and monster-wheeled beach tour buses. But still, there’s something kind of scary cool about damn-near getting your commuter car stuck in loose, fluffy sand at HIGH TIDE Driving on Outlaw Beach!

Four-wheelin'!

Of course I have already mentioned the happy coincidence of my vacation occurring at the same time as Chesapeake Bay Woman’s. Normally there are nearly 200 miles of asphalt between us, but last week, all that separated us was five miles of sand and FREE WI-FI. And, while I’m sure she was thrilled to meet me in person (and really, who wouldn’t be?), she was positively giddy to get her twitchy fingers on my touch-pad laptop keyboard and check on her blog comments and email. I know I should’ve dished out some tough love, but she looked at me with those desperate eyes, offered me a bottle of red wine, and in an instant, I became her enabler. But seriously, it was such a kick meeting her – she’s lovely and I suspect our paths will cross again, and not just on the Information Superhighway.

I don’t want to wreck the happy afterglow by talking about traffic or lines at the grocery store or children who briefly became barnacles or the refrigerator that couldn’t keep up with us or how the housekeeping department hadn’t even been to our house when we checked in or any of that. Because at this moment, in my home, on my bed, I am remembering only the fun parts of the week, mostly because they outnumbered the hiccups times infinity.

When the company is great and the view is breathtaking and all you have to do for a week is figure out how to while away the day? That’s a happy situation, friends. It’s an opportunity to relax and indulge, and press the reset button on our hyper lives, and that’s exactly what we did.

Only 358 days till next year’s vacation!