WEATHER, MUSIC, AND A WALK ON THE BEACH

Crazy damn weather up here in New England, and I'm not wasting a second of it.  Well, that's not entirely true.

Yesterday the weather was phenomenal.  Hot, sunny, fantastic.  I had to waste it sitting inside trying to get my sorry self into a lottery for a required class that has limited seating all across the state.  I got into the class but lost a perfectly decent beach day, so today I am determined to have my time in the sun.

Only problem is the weather.  It's storming out, not so much where I live; it's just raining here.  But the beach is getting a big-ass thunderstorm this morning.  I watch the radar like a savant.  I consider myself a bit of an amateur weather person, so I know if I leave my house at 9:00 a.m. sharp, I should arrive at the beach just about the same time the sun does.  Either way, sun or no, it's going to be hot as blazes today, so I'm going to the beach, damnitall.

I get into my car at 9:06, and the sun is already peeking out here.  By 9:16, the skies turn bluish, and by 9:19 I'm in sunglasses mode.  I have Ted Nugent's "Stranglehold" on full tilt, followed by Little Feat's "Dixie Chicken" and Joe Jackson's "You Can't Get What You Want" (the live version online is outrageous, by the way) and then "What You Know" by Two Door Cinema Club.  This is all followed up by a bootleg live version of Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Vedder singing AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" recorded in Australia.

Low tide at the beach is right around 9:00 this morning, and I'm going to walk the entire beach for the first time this summer.  That's my plan if the weather cooperates as well as the music does.  I shut down the radio as I make my approach down High Street.

When I arrive, my favorite space is open, right at the best part of the entire stretch of ocean. Steam is rising from the still-wet pavement, and the sand is damply pockmarked from the pounding storm that has drifted out to sea.  I walk/jog the entire beach and back, stop back at the car, then haul my chair and bag to a prime sandy spot. 

A few hours later after a dip in the waves, four chapters of a good book, and constant movement back toward the rocks to flee the rising tide, I am ready to leave.  A new cloud bank has formed, and shortly after I arrive home, tornado warnings go up all over the area. Funnel clouds are spotted and hail the size of golf balls pelt nearby towns, but my hamlet escapes the worst of it.  I can still hear the storm in the distance an hour after it passes overhead.

Crazy damn weather, and I won't waste any of it.