And we're back

I am back from my brief vacation, and I can say this: the Jersey Shore is a great place to go when you need to get away.

Yes, you read that right: when you want to get away. Even though I have poured so much work time into the Jersey Shore for the last year and a half now -- and will be back on Thursday for work -- I couldn't wait to get down to the Billmae Cottage Cape May and enjoy the shore like a lot of other people do: as a vacation. And in true vacation form, I planned nothing -- NOTHING -- for the entire time I was there.

How liberating! How wonderful! My only regret is that it didn't last longer!

Still, I wanted to share a few things out of the ordinary that I did on my way to doing nothing:

1. Ate steak. I'm not a big beef eater, but after an afternoon lazing on the couch watching America's Test Kitchen (it was 95 degrees on Sunday, after all, and I could stay in if I wanted), decided my next dinner would involve beef, so on Monday I had the fillet at Oyster Bay. Yum.

2. Did not run. Yes, I'm training for a half marathon, but a few aches and pains have been dogging me, so I kept the running shoes packed away and did a lot of walking with the dog.

3. Speaking of...Emily swam! She went into the ocean and paddled her little self to exhaustion, using her tail as a propeller. Well, sort of. It looked like a propeller. A bit of background: I adopted Emily, a Jack Russell terrier mix, about three years ago when she was a four year old pup. I don't know much about her background, and in all the time I've had her, never knew if she would swim. I'd taken her to the beach, sure, but only when the water was too cold. So, on a whim, I took her down to Higbee Beach in Cape May, which is dog-friendly -- as are all of Cape May's beaches on the Delaware Bay. She ran to the water and splashed around, getting used to the fact that water kept crashing in little waves. Then she ventured out further, chasing birds and smelling everything. Then I went in up to my thighs. I turned to watch a boat go by, and when I turned back, she was swimming! This prompted three straight days of beach time with Emily. A tennis ball in the water made everything more fun. She's still exhausted. And, no, I don't have pictures. I was worried about keeping an eye on my pup!

4. Went to Terry-Oke. Terry-Oke, as you might know if you read this blog, is Terry O'Brien's karaoke set up that rotates around the bars of Cape May. I promised I'd make it at some point, and on Monday night, I did. I went to Martini Beach and watched people, um, try to sing. Now, I didn't belt out a show tune or anything, but I'm told I'm the only person who has ever gotten up to dance at Terry-Oke (it was to "That Thing You Do." Who wouldn't want to do the twist?)

5. Went to be at 9pm. Yup, I said it. On my break, I slept. A lot. Naps were in heavy rotation as well.

So that was my big shore vacation. Like I said, I would have liked to stay longer, but there are classes to be taught and articles to be written (given that I'm a contributing editor at interest.com, there's plenty to write about with this whole Lehman/AIG/Merrill Lynch situation we got going on here). Maybe next fall I'll take a whole week...to do nothing.

Also, I wrote an article that appears in today's Philadelphia Inquirer. It's about the Philadelphia Distance Run -- check it out here.