BEACH WEEKEND!

Around here we like routines. Sunday nights, Phrodaux makes pizza, Thursday nights he makes grilled cheese sandwiches or maybe salmon burgers. No, this does NOT get old because it's never actually the same meal twice. Phrodaux has an Emersonian distrust of foolish consistency.

Really? You don't remember hobgoblins of little minds? All right, go read the quote. We'll wait.

ANYWAY. For a decade now we've had a routine on President's Day weekend. It is known as BEACH WEEKEND and it is sacred. On BEACH WEEKEND, the Dirty 6 convene (Phrodaux and yours truly, Doc Ock & M, plus those northernly friends who never quite settled on a code name. For three very good reasons, they will now be known as the Nobles. Reason 1) They know why; Reason 2) Noble is a third grade vocabulary word this week; and 3) Doctor Who.  Thus spake the Fairy Queen).

On BEACH WEEKEND, food is consumed that is amazing in both quantity and quality. Think shrimp burgers, rockfish reubens, blackened sweet potatoes, butter almond cake, mmm. Drink is consumed...enough said (but honestly, so much less than back when we were young).

Real BEACH WEEKENDS take place at a giant house in Oceanside where there are lots of bedrooms, a hot tub, and a stunning view of the ocean for the storms that always seem to fill up Saturday and Sunday (once the windows bent inward, I swear) and the brilliant sunshine that arrives just as we are leaving on Monday.

This year, like two others, was a semi-real BEACH WEEKEND, because the real house was not available. This time we were in a condo in Netarts (I had a British boss once who choked when he heard that name...I think he was thinking about tarts, and not the lemon kind).  This is an old school Oregon coast kind of place.

The grocery stores are kind of minimal, so at one point Phrodaux and I trekked into town for seafood. Where the offerings were still sort of minimal. How can there be no steamer clams in the entire city of Tillamook? We even tried the place out on the oyster shell jetty, but no dice.

The houses near us were a fantastic combination of new, old, shabby, snazzy. My personal favorite was this poor thing, abandoned for who knows how long.

I'm thinking it last saw love about the same time as the "public access" path to the beach. 

 Poor Phrodaux spent 24 hours sick as a...well, not as a dog because really, they did fine. I blame a lack of Phrodaux for my terrible showing at Cards Against Humanity. Honestly, I know how that twisted mind works.

By Sunday evening, though, he was up and about to witness (bossy FQ nixed participation for sick boy) the polar plunge. Brave M and VNoble took a quick dip in stormy Netarts Bay. We all cheered, except Catfish, who wailed from the shore like his mommy was returning to the selkies.

Catfish and his brother certainly make BEACH WEEKEND a different sort of beast. Less quiet, but more presents. The doggies worked hard to be good - no baptising the house, no harassing the kids, generally avoiding mischief. Clearly it was very tiring.