Web Pages:

   Subscribe to RSS Feed
   Subscribe to RSS Comments Feed

Categories:

Archives:



Books:

Profiles:

View Alan Weiss' profile on LinkedIn

Recent Comments:

Cape May Journal: July 13

It’s 7:45 on Sunday, and I’m off on my morning wanderings in Cape May. Maria sleeps later than I do, so our ritual is that I sneak out like a reverse cat burglar.

I know that the nearby Congress Hall will have the Sunday Times, so that’s the first stop. Along the way, as do all early risers, I find unique morning activities. First of all, everything is wet, because it’s just been watered by automatic systems or the ocean and breeze have taken care of it. My car, I find, is drenched as usual. The humidity is calling for gills.

Then there are the screeching birds. These aren’t gulls, but purple martins, which reside in dozens of 30-foot aeries constructed by the Sandpiper condo management. They are famous for eating mosquitoes, of which it is difficult to find even one. I’m still not sure whether they are efficiently devouring them or the insects have simply been scared off by their ferocity. “Eat like a bird” is an oxymoron. (I arrange to trade my parking space each year for that of the superintendent, so that I’m tucked in a small cavity next to the building, where the martins cannot gather. Occasionally, a seagull, believing it is a B-52, accurately bombs me, and I keep a strong cleanser in the trunk for these raids.)

Uncle Bill’s pancake house is already three-quarters packed. It’s one of those place that is chaotic with mediocre food, but is a tradition among families. Brand is everything.

At the “boardwalk” (these are the stretches that abut the beach along the Jersey shore, but in Cape May it’s a misnomer, since it’s actually a macadam strip running for miles along the beach), I sit to drink my coffee and observe “the runners.” Prior to 10 am, you may bike or run along the boardwalk. It is already over 80° and the humidity must be the equivalent of walking under water.

There are runners who look like runners; people power walking; people very heavy who are doing their best to engage in healthy pursuits; and then there are the “skeletons.” These are almost always women, with poor running form, who have not an ounce of body fat and who are determined to stay that way. Elbows and knees obtrude, and their entire musculature and skeleton are readily visible. It is the converse of “health.”

There is a difference, I believe, between regimen and compulsion. The former is a healthy way to organize your life, and the latter is a behavioral disorder.

It’s time to head back and awake the lovely Maria, a part of my regimen.


(Click on image to enlarge)

© Alan Weiss 2008. All rights reserved.

Email This Post
Print This Post
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • del.icio.us
  • digg
  • Technorati
  • StumbleUpon
Posted by Alan Weiss on July 13th, 2008 filed in Peregrinations |

One Response to “Cape May Journal: July 13”

  1. Bob Ligget Says:
    July 14th, 2008 at 12:06 pm

    I wondered if you would be going back to Cape May. My family and I go there each year, flying in from Salt Lake City , picking up my mother in Philadelphia and then staying at the Marquis de Lafayette. I’m afraid we’re one of those families who eat at Uncle Bill’s each year or risk the wrath of our (now grown) children. Same with Henry’s on the boardwalk, the Lobster House and 2-Mile Island on the way to Wildwood. The Merion is now on our list and I highly recommend it. Try this on your next early beach walk: take a bag of popcorn (or any small leftovers from dinner), simply stand on the beach holding a piece high above you and watch a dive-bombing gull swoop down and grab it from your fingers. Always entertaining and only occasionally painful! We’ll be there in August….

Leave a Comment

Subscribe without commenting