Eattin' Crabs in Montross

Lord have mercy, I am pooped. Mark and I spent the better part of last week at our friend's river house in what is called "The Northern Neck" of Virginia. It was a gorgeous get away with lots of kayaking, seafood eatting and beach combing, plus a bit of staying up too late. So I could use a good nap or two.

The snip above is of Mark and me (though I am really not that svelte) eatting steamed Blue Crabs on the screened in porch. Oddly enough, I just realized that I dated the thing 2007. What tha??? I guess it doesn't matter. We were eatting crabs in Montross in 2007 also. I gave the snip to our friend who owns the house and he set it next to the paper cut Christmas tree forest I cut down there last winter.



One of the things we do every day down there is shark tooth hunt. There are a couple of barrier islands about a half mile off shore in which these teeth wash up on the beach. Usually I will find one tooth every fifteen or thirty minutes. Mark and I ventured about a quarter mile further to a more grown over island with lots of stinky marsh mud (which to me smells like home as I grew up in a woody/marshy spot an hour south of this river house). I hit the motherload back there finding 40 shark teeth within an hour. Mark found one here. Weird. Usually I am the person in the group who finds the least, so when I started picking up one right after the other, without taking a step, I wasn't going anywhere until I scoured every inch of the place. That was fun. Stinky. And I sunk up to my knees in black mud a time or two. But fun.

We got to the river house a day before our friend and his other guests arrived. During that time I finished stitching a couple of ATCs I made for myself.



I also read the book "The Nanny Diaries," another good beach read book that was better than I had anticipated. I subscribe to the book choosing theory that "Best Seller" means that I might have half a chance of getting through the book and half liking it. When I choose books for other reasons (such as choosing "Theodore Rex" after hearing the author on "Book Notes" on CSpan....and then spending six months getting through it), they usually have less enthusiastic results than when I choose them based on the stamped seal of approval of the masses, "Best Seller."

I did get a beautiful tan somehow, though I diligently slathered myself in SPF 50. Tanning is usually a futile act, as my darkest of tans will only have a shelf life of around 36 hours. A few freckles may remain after that. As I am hovering on the precipice of my 51st birthday, and am seeing more lines and wrinkles form on my face, I am more likely to seek the highest SPF known to science than to try and get brown for a day or two.

I also managed to stick to my diet at the river house, though every time I heard someone crunching on a Frito, I wanted to cry. (20 pounds lost in a little under 5 weeks!)

Mark and I are on vacation together this week and will be in and out. No plans are made at the moment. When I am done with whatever we do I will surely be pooped once again.