The kids and I got the boot at 9:00am. Scott was antsy to start work and the kids were being… you know… kids. I threw together our beach bag, snacks and bathing suits and headed to the beach. What more could you want on a nice January day than sun and sea. Besides, what trouble could I possibly find there?!
I set up the blanket and proceeded to play with the kids at the edge of the water. Evie dug with her shovel. Jack played in the waves. I started looking for shells.
As I was walking along in half inch deep water, I felt a twig brush the underside of my foot. Weird… I hadn’t seen anything there. I turned to see…. 2 giant claws sticking out of the watery sand, pinching the air. What the hell is this?!
I always thought nothing lived in the sand. And if something did manage to live in there, I expected it to be clams. You know…. creatures that are harmless in every way. If crabs live at the water line…. what else is down there?! Keep that in mind the next time the waves are pulling the sand out from under your feet….. who knows if there’s a man-o-war down there ready to go for the achilles.
He didn’t find a purchase on my foot. Thank you, Good Karma. As it was, I leapt left…. then right… then back to the left (for no obviously reason than I was hearing “float like a butterfly” in my head). Good to know: when in fight or flight mode, I call up my inner Muhammad Ali. Not good to know… I’m apparently afraid of things that I dwarf by well more than 150 pounds.
The crab immediately dug itself back into the stand. Listen up, asshole crab…. if you don’t want to be stepped on, better to not make yourself completely invisible. It’s mutually beneficial that I avoid you.
The kids and I spent the next 10 minutes annoying him. No, I don’t feel bad. We didn’t hurt him. But he was ticked off. He kept trying to mangle the shovel and if Scott speaks pelican, I now speak crab. We absolutely got told off.
If the day had ended there, it would have been a great day. Unfortunately, a little later I made the mistake of making sure Jack didn’t drowned while swimming. Normal mom stuff. Evie felt there was an unfair lack of attention and marched off into the dunes telling me, “I’m going to find a new family.” I’m fairly certain the right response was to tell her that I understood she was upset…. I love both of them equally… yadda yadda yadda. I started pointing to families and asking loudly she thought they looked like a good fit. I even offered to broker an introduction. I told her I’d make sure her dresses were mailed to her new house. It went downhill fast. There were tears.
Look, I am a positive feedback motivatee. That means, I try harder when I’m told I’m doing well. Constructive criticism is also well received. Bad performance reviews without an obvious means to improve are like kryptonite. Evie and I are navigating these waters together.
The Padre Island National Seashore is awesome. Come here. It’s everything a tranquil seashore should be – long, clean, few people, great weather, tons of birds and other wildlife. The visitor’s center is outstanding. It really gets high marks across the board from me.
In other news, the Chief has developed a loud banging under the driver seat. It seems to be when the RV bounces while we’re driving. Scott took a look. The front airbags are shredded. We’re going to have to get that looked at in San Antonio. According to one of our WCE experts… we should expect $2k for an suspension airbag job on the front. I worry more that a place can find the parts…. not always a given due to the Chief’s age. We’ll see. If you know anything about this sort of thing, we’d be happy to hear from you. Hit us up on Facebook. Thanks!!
