I'm gonna soak up the sun.... now

Lauren and I were stopped at the light on Tilton Road taking the back roads home from the Shore when we heard the beach radio station advertise the upcoming Sheryl Crow concert at the Borgata for early July.  Immediately, we looked at each other and said “Mom’s birthday?”  “She would love it!”  Serendipitously, the moment appeared and suddenly we had a perfect ‘excuse’ for just the three of us to enjoy a rare weekend together in Atlantic City.

Marie and Lauren are two original summer beach girls.  While Laur and I have our music and the Flyers that we enjoy together, she and Marie share their love of summer and the beach together as two peas in a pod.  It all started when Marie and her girlfriend Tammy would shlep the kids down to Brigantine every Tuesday every summer before the kids entered first grade.  Marie would pack up my Grandma Martino’s silver “granny” shopping cart with two beach chairs, blanket, umbrella, cooler, beach bag and be ready to go in a moment’s notice.  All these years later, she still keeps a beach bag fully stocked year-round.  Lauren is cut from the same beach blanket.

This weekend we shared a wonderful two days together as the nuclear family, before Laur hooked up with her college friend Mary on Saturday night, spending the next few days in Avalon.  Like mother, like daughter.  That’s okay, I documented our recent adventures on facebook, for when the aliens eventually land and take over this planet, my legacy will remain in tact!

As for me these days, I find myself drawing on my inner bookkeeper child, looking for a more balanced approach to work and play, with decidedly more emphasis on the play part of that equation as each year passes!  

I’ve given up trying to second guess thirty years of choices, decisions and non-decisions, content to play the ball where it lies.  What I didn’t yet achieve is my fault.  What I don’t yet have is on me.  I’m still trying to figure out my Plan B.  I am very much a work-in-progress.  That’s okay.  I’m certainly more than content with what I’ve got and who is near by to enjoy these adventures with me.  That is the most important thing, right?  I have no doubt that I’ll eventually get there.  Wherever ‘there’ is……..

For someone who has lived the better part of his life following the conservative principles of accounting……I’m going all in now.  Not quite ready to sell everything and move to Hawaii (which Marie really and truly wanted to do after our visit in 2007), I am not going to pass on certain opportunities like this past weekend, with the hope that my eventual retirement will deliver both time and health fully in tact to do these same things in another twenty years. 

I’m alive and I love the Now!

So, Sheryl…..forget Snookie.  Hit me up the next time you’re in the (609) and I’ll show you the real Jersey Shore.  Marie is cool with this as this is part of my ‘new’ Plan B philosophy.  In fact, I can show you some sick bike paths in Moorestown, if you’ve truly gotten over that famous former boyfriend?

I’m gonna soak up the sun

I’ve got my iPod on

So that I can rock on!