We didn't go to the beach this year for our customary week. The place we had stayed in for the past few summers was sold, part of the owner's investments that were being liquidated to pay for two sons' college educations. I looked around halfheartedly to find another house to rent, but there was nothing available at a reasonable price in the location we wanted during the week we were interested. I'm not really much of a beach person, preferring to sit under an umbrella and multiple layers of sunscreen. I do like to wiggle my toes in the sand, though, and see the dolphins that swim along the coastline most years. I'll miss that this winter, when I'll have to think back further to recall the heat and the sand and the noise the waves make.

My grandmother was one of ten children. She grew up in Lambertville, New Jersey in a house that was split between her family and her aunt’s. When the family made the rare trip to the beach, they took the train and packed lunches for the children in shoe boxes. The only item I can recall these meals including is hard boiled eggs. That always sounded so appealing, but I now know that it’s the fast path to salmonella.

Books: Finished A Blind Eye. This would probably have been better had it been read in a just a few sittings, rather than in the choppy, a-few-pages-at-a-time way I've been reading lately. It was a passable story, and two interesting characters that we never really got to know deeply enough. Started Fear Itself by Walter Mosley. Readable so far, though I haven't gotten to the real meat of the story yet.