Another week vacationing in Ocean City, NJ concluded! It’s always sad to leave vacation but it’s nice looking forward to finding your old rhythms, too. For my part, I walked and swam a lot (I did row once, when we came home on Wednesday before our dinner at Knife and Fork) in place of rowing. My weight stayed consistent despite some allowances in the fermented grape department, a few desserts, and pizza and fries + other requisite boardwalk eats (salt water taffy, anyone?). Rhonda wasn’t up for some of the walks, so I took half of them alone this trip. I of course love her company on a walk this summer, but as an only child I have cultivated a tolerance at least, and an appreciation even, for being with myself. And hey–I have my own mission.
An additional benefit of striking out alone: I checked out some places I was curious about.
Positively 4th Street Café
One of those was Positively 4th Street Café, which is a cute coffee shop on the north end of the island, close to Ocean City High School. It’s got a kitschy, cozy vibe, with art installations including guitars and other mixed media, elevating the space. I have a feeling the joint gets packed; I managed to get there just before the line to order was snaking out the door. My Americano was serviceable but I enjoyed sitting outside, beneath the awning, amongst the mix-and-match furniture, and calling the office for some business. I logged 18,000 steps that day (we went to Wildwood as well).
Cathy’s 14th Street Bakery
Another spot I was curious about was Cathy’s 14th Street Bakery, which a mentor of mine who lives in OC raved about but decried their sporadic hours. I was in maximal indecision mode once in the shoppe; I didn’t want to overbuy, but I didn’t want to come home without a decent sampling of their donuts. I ended up getting a mix of things, including two different kinds of jelly donut (cinnamon sugar and powdered sugar), a Boston creme (the last of the day in fact, much to another shoobie’s chagrin), and some rings, including their cider donuts. I had a half of a glazed and a half of a cider and they were good.
Bright Lights, Little City
Thursday night into Friday was a little wild; we had a lightning strike on a transformer outside our room around 5 pm, and the hotel lost power until about 1 am. All of us: mom, dad, me, Rhonda, joey, Aaron–had different recollections about what happened, but there was some serious shit that went down.
I had a hotspot so we were able to stay on the internet and get updates about what the estimated restoration of power would be (and refresh our RSS feeds, of course), but we housed our takeout in an increasingly stuffy dining room. Nipping out for Gyros and Greens allowed Rhonda and I time to soak in some Subaru air conditioning, and we found a few minutes for a quick pint while dinner was being prepared. These are the digressions that make vacation vacation.
Back in OCNJ, Aaron and I sat outside for a while to keep cool later in the evening and were treated to seeing some line workers in buckets fixing the problem. We heard some shop vocabulary, including “I’m in the hole!” And the response, “Yeah, get out of there.” It was so nice outside before the crew arrived that I fell asleep. The power came back on and we all enjoyed the return of the air conditioning. Aaron and I reflected that the job of a lineman must be both physical and intellectual.
