"I Own You, Mother Plucker!"

or getting powned by Mother Nature

Okay, so last week Geo and I packed up the car with enough crap to survive on a desert island for six months, and headed to the Jersey shore for our annual beach vacation. The journey started out beautifully.

Couldn't have been better. The sun was shining. The roads were dry. The conversation civilized.

Well... mostly civilized. There was this lovely exchange of travel talk in response to me "mumbling" in the car, which I wasn't. I swear. He's just old and infirm. (I kid. I love you, honey. *flutters eyelashes coyly*)

Geo: I'm going to get a hearing check, buy a hearing aid and then turn it OFF when you talk to me.

Me: What?!? ...*snort* hahahahahaha

Okay. That was funny. One for Geo.

Anywho, the first stop on the way to our annual sun-drenched respite was lovely, Malvern, PA for a house concert with our other favorite musician, Francis Dunnery. While it's always a pleasure to attend one of his house concerts, this one was extra special because it was held at his booker, Kate's house. She and I have been conversing back and forth for the last five years, but had never met. We were stoked about finally having a face-to-face with Kate, plus our pal, Tony the merch guy was going to be there as well as Francis' better half, Erica.

(How weird is it that the two musicians I heart most are both living with women named Erica... but I digress.)

The evening was spectacular. We met a lot of really nice people. The music was great. The food was tasty. The bonding afterward was satisfying. All in all an evening well spent.

The next morning, sufficiently fed and watered, we set off for the shore. We got on the correct road, just the wrong direction. In our defense, there was no clear signage and we don't have a compass in our car or on our iTouch. But, yeah, we were heading West instead of East. In hindsight I think the cosmos was trying to tell us something. Clearly we weren't listening.

After 15 minutes of feeling like we weren't in Kansas anymore, I pulled out my phone and called upon the Navigator feature to guide us. Help us Obi Wan Kenobi.

Funny thing...the voice for the navigator is this boozy broad who slurs the names of roads a LOT. Seriously. I keep expecting her to belch or hiccup. It's hysterical. We named her "Babs" after a friend of a friend who was this crazy, in-your-face, I'm-gonna-kick-your-ass, I-love-you-man drunk at a bar crawl.

Half an hour later, with the distinct scent of gin hanging heavy in the air, we were heading eastward thanks to Boozy Babs, the barfly.

The overcast skies didn't dampen the warm greeting we received from our family members. We cracked open the Ritas, went to lunch, strolled through an art show, tapped the liquor box, hung on the dock, got a refill, cooked dinner, corked the wine... you get the idea.

The forecast called for breaks of sunshine, but everyone knows weathermen are LIARS!! By the third grey day, I was convinced the Sun, knowing we were beach bound, took a holiday to the South Seas.

Bastard. I was starting to take it personally.

Still we had fun. In between cocktails, we braved the winds and actually made it to the ocean.

...and stuck our feet in the surf.

The water was surprisingly warm. Determined to wear my bathing suit, I dove into the lagoon at the house.

Holy F..F..F..FARG!!!!??!

Are you kidding me?!? It was so cold (how cold was it?) It was so cold that if I had gonads, they would have totally retreated up into my colon.

After I got enough feeling back in my limbs to hold a fresh cocktail, we spent the afternoon kibitzing and feeding the birds off the dock.

See that bathing suit. That's the one I had on when I ran into my fantasy hubby, Rhett at Dewey beach. Yeah. Scary. But look, he's still thinking about that encounter and how hawt I looked with my crazy-ass beach blown hair. And yes, I shamelessly worked him into this post just so I could put his oh-so-yummy face here.

*swoon*

Moving on...

Things got epically worse. Apparently Mother Nature surprised the Sun at his hotel in Thailand and caught him canoodling some nimble, young Thai chippie. She got pissed, came home early and decided to trash his summer home on LBI.

I mean she brought it!

She unleashed her wrath in the form of 50 mph winds, torrential rain and spotty power outages. The perfect storm of vacation suck.

*sigh* You know the beach party's over when you don't even bother to shave your Simian armpits.

By Friday we cried "Uncle". You win. We're out. We got the message: "Here's your hat. What's your hurry. Now get off my damn island, Monkey Girl!!"

If that wasn't bad enough, good ole vindictive Mother Nature spanked us all the way home. Hey, it's not our fault horny Ole Sol was feeling his oats and other choice girlie bits on his vacation, Be-yatch. Sheesh! Take a valium, for God's sake.

We tried, but sometimes there's just not enough alcohol to ignore the harsh reality in front of you. At least I trashed the last two bags of "Fiendship" bread.