a weekend ALONE!

So Jim and I and the dogs (of course) went down the shore to North Wildwood to my aunt and uncle's house. My Uncle Jim is pretty sick - he's had cancer for about 18 months off and on now and it's metastasized to his liver. He's pretty amazing though - every time the doctors think it's getting worse he seems to get better so who knows what the future will bring. I wanted to #1 go see him while he's still doing ok and #2 to go to the beach.

Friday we got there about 6 - visited with them for a while and went to dinner @ Owen's around the corner. Great dinner - very reasonable food AND beer wise. Nice portions - nice prices. Came back to the house and visited some more before going up stairs to the apartment and watching the fireworks off the balcony and going to bed.

Well Saturday morning my aunt was hollering up the stairs for me. When I went outside she was rally upset and asked me to come downstairs to where they live. I took one look at Uncle Jim and knew it was not good. His left leg was really swollen and discolored, he seemed to be in unbelievable pain, and he was grey. I asked my Jim what he thought and we confirmed Aunt Joan's suspicion that he needed to go to the hospital and go quick. After all is said in done - his cumadin levels are off and he has a major clot in his leg. He's still in the hospital and they're trying to dissolve it with Heparin and Cumadin. Hopefully it'll work and he'll go home in a lot less pain. Just in time for his next chemo treatment.

After everything was figured out on Saturday afternoon, we took the dogs for a walk down to the blues and BBQ festival at Olde NJ Ave and just chilled for a few hours. Pooka is NOT an active creature - she trudged along like a trooper but it was definitely not the highlight of the weekend for her - activity is NOT her strong point. She kept looking at us like "seriously I'm on this earth to be cute and useless please stop torturing me with this 'walk' thing" - it was adorable. She looked really hot at one point so we poured some water over her and she turned GREEN! It was so weird - apparently she's been rolling in the grass and needs a serious bath.

We took them home, drank a few on the porch, talked to my cousin Tony when he and his girlfriend came to get some of Uncle Jim's stuff for the hospital then went back down to the fest for dinner :) I LOVE brisket...and festivals, really - love them. Drinking on the street - climbing up on the sea wall - eating dinner outside - it really doens't get any better.

Sunday we went for a drive down to Cape May. It was awesome - the day was beautiful and the company was of course wonderful. I'm so used to doing these things by myself it was really nice to share them with someone else - especially because quite a few funny things happened - and it's nice if you're NOT the only one laughing because you're the only one who was there.

The weirdest was this guy who offered to have his wife take our picture in front of the Cape May Lighthouse. She came sprinting over, bike in tow - took the camera and layed down in the grass and kept shimmying backward in a crab crawl to try and get the "perfect shot"
One of these days I'll post it - we're in the bottom left corner on a 4x6 vertical print and we're only about 3/4 of an inch tall. But it's a great shot of othe lighthouse!