Monday night, Suzette called me. She and Matts were nearby at Tyler State Park. I invited them over for dinner. Rob’s friend Tom was also coming over and so it worked perfectly. After dinner, Caren and Steve dropped by and before I knew it, I had a bunch of guests and we talked and laughed for hours. It was so nice although I wish I knew ahead of time so I could have invited more people!

The next day Rob and I went to Belmar. I hadn’t been to the shore once this summer! My preference is to go after Labor Day because that’s when the crowds and heat die down. It was relaxing sitting on the sand and listening to the waves. Rob and I decided that rather than going somewhere specific for our vacation we would stick around home and take day trips. We live in an area where we are close to a lot of places yet we rarely take advantage of any of it.

Wednesday we caught the train to New York City. We didn’t really have any ideas as to what to do other than I wanted to shop at Uniqlo. In Penn Station, Rob saw a brochure for the Broadway musical, Jersey Boys. It’s the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. He called the box office but was told they are SOLD OUT! Regardless, we decided we would concentrate on getting tickets. We took the subway to Ground Zero. Rob hadn’t been there before and we walked around looking at the progress. A man with a microphone came up to us and asked us questions as to our thoughts on the construction. The sign on his microphone said WINS 1010. I had the feeling he wanted us to say something negative by the way he phrased his questions. Both Rob and I said we felt the job they were doing was great and we were amazed at the progress. I doubt we made it on the radio but who knows. I looked around their web site and they do have quite a bit on the 9/11 anniversary but I didn’t find anything that seemed to include us.

From Ground Zero we went to Uniqlo and I bought a cute sweater and Rob bought a dress shirt. I wish a Uniqlo would open near me. I would buy all my clothes there. It was getting late and we were getting hungry so we went to my favorite NY pizza joint, Arturo’s. We got half-meatball and half-eggplant pizzaq. As I ate, I kept the thought of getting tickets to the Jersey Boys in my head. I could see us sitting there in the audience. I knew we would get tickets.

We grabbed a taxi to the Jersey Boys Theater near Times Square. Standing in front of the theater talking to a woman was the comedian, Jeffrey Ross. He’s one of those guys who does the Celebrity Roasts and the Countdown shows. We went to the box office and asked for tickets. We were told to just stay put and they would call us if they had any cancellations. Rob walked around the front of the theater looking for scalpers but he could only find a woman who was selling one ticket. After maybe 15 minutes, a man from the box office told us that he didn’t have any cancellations but he could sell us tickets from a group that bought too many tickets. Ka-CHING! Next thing I know we are in the audience– SECOND ROW, BABY!!!!

The play was FANTASTIC! Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons really don’t get the respect they deserve. Those guys had so many hits. I predict they will be turning this play into a movie sometime soon.

We were pretty tired the next day. Eventually we drove to Point Pleasant Beach. The day was perfect and it was such a joy being at the shore. The day ended on a sour note when I got a parking ticket. Rob said that the parking ticket cinched it– he hated New Jersey and would boycot if for three years. I hope he wasn’t serious it.

Yesterday we woke up early and took off for Jim Thorpe where we would go whitewater rafting. The drive was only an hour and a half from Rob’s house. We arrived around 9:45, just in time for the 10:00 rafting expedition. There was a corporate team building event taking place. All the people wore shirts and t-shirts while Rob and I stood there in our bathing suits. I felt weird being the only one in a bikini. Four other people arrived that weren’t from the corporate group so we teamed up in the same raft together.

Rafting was a lot harder than I expected. There was a lot of rowing involved. We also had a small issue where one of our raft teamates was so massively fat, he weighed the boat down and we kept getting caught on rocks. One of the methods we employed to extracate the raft from the rocks was to bounce up and down. The thing was, the big guy (everyone called him Tiny) also bounced up and down and the boat shook so violently that I actually BOUNCED OUT OF THE BOAT and landed on my back on rocks. My doopie is black and blue! This only happened once because each time after that I grabbed onto the raft and held on for dear life. Later, on the last section of rapids, our raft somehow wrapped itself around a large boulder. We were very close to fixing it until another raft hit right into us— RIGHT WHERE I WAS SITTING and I got rammed! I flew backwards right into Tiny. What luck because otherwise I might have been thrown right into the rapids. One of our rafting scouts had to canoe over to us and help us get our raft untangled. Everything was fine and we all survived. Even though I am black and blue and my muscles ache, I had a great time and would do it again in an instant.

Only today and tomorrow left and then I am back to work. I so enjoy not working. Maybe I should start playing the lottery?