The Hole-In-One is a small breakfast and lunch place in Orleans that is easily and by far my favorite place in the world to get food. When Emily and I visited last year I made a point to bring her here right away! I walked in and got lucky with a seat at the counter and ordered a cup of coffee and the same thing I always do, Eggs Benedict, or Eggs Benny as they like to call it. Eagerly awaiting my epic and glorious meal, I read the paper to see what was going to be happening this week and get a glimpse of the weather. Eight days in a row of rain and clouds....blah! Oh well, I'm not here for the weather anyway...
Less than five minutes later my food arrived and it was everything I could have ever hoped for. For some reason I am just hopelessly addicted to the Hole's Eggs Benny. Their hollandaise sauce is just so good, I can never get enough of it! A few minutes into my meal an older gentleman sat next to me and decided after a quick look that he would have the same thing I was having. Seemed like a good enough reason to chat, so I introduced myself and told him about how I traveled three thousand miles to eat the Hole's Eggs Benny and that he had made a good choice in it. He agreed about it's greatness and told me that he had been coming for years and had even been the one who built the very building we were eating in. This eighty-five year old man and I had a great conversation about his kids (who were old enough to be my grandparents) who lived in California and about his grandson who was a great artist and was interested in an animation career. It was a solid start to what was definitely going to be a great day.
After breakfast I drove over to my Dad's house to visit with him and my brother Jeff. My brother unfortunately had a spot of the flu and wasn't able to leave the house much but they had made an exception so that he could come to pick me up at the airport. After that he was on house arrest until he was healed up. We hung out and played some video games, talked about a great many things, and caught up on all the things that had been happening over the past year with his schooling and such.
A month or so ago my family had an unfortunate break in where their only laptop had been stolen. They'd only had it for about two months and it was a pretty devastating event as none of them had ever experienced any break ins or theft in their neighborhood. All of the sudden everyone was locking all of their doors and being a lot more cautious with everything, which you'd expect...but it's just sad that a single event like this can really alter their habits like that, but such is a life. Without a computer I hadn't had a whole lot of contact with them over the year besides the occasional phone call, so I started thinking of a plan on how I might be able to get them back online before I left. Everyone should be able to send emails!
Later that afternoon my Dad lent me his 7'10" surfboard and a wet suit and I drove out to Nauset Beach to hit the surf. The Cape had a really nice swell coming in from the east, but it was very windy and messy surf. I went out anyway and it might as well have been my first day surfing! I got totally thrashed out there. Head high waves were closing out the beach and definitely had their way with me and by big board. It was still fun though! The waves here are so much more powerful than at my local break. Even the smaller surf will push you all over the place, where as back at home I can go right through them like butter. It was a good eye opener though, I need to expand my local surfing a little. I love the Atlantic!
When I was about thirteen my Dad gave me a really nice gift. It was a surfboard that he had used when he was young and surfing competitively. In 1984 a good friend of my Dad's named Mike Losordo had shaped it for him at his house in Orleans. Designing it together, they concocted a wide 5'8" thruster with a swallow tail and a three inch rocker. Three glassed in fins, with a sick orange and blue paint job. This was the type of board that for the time was just ridiculous. It just absolutely rips. When I was a fledgling surfer at the age of thirteen my Dad gave me this board and sent me off to the beach to learn how to ride. I could barely use the thing! I don't think I ever once stood up on it it was so damn squirrely. Definitely not a board meant to learn on and definitely not for the faint of heart...but I loved it anyway. A year or so later I retired the board to the shed at my Grandfather's house in exchange for a longer slightly easier board and there it sat for about 15 years. When I came back this time I decided I wanted to find this board, fix it up if I could and bring it back to SoCal with me. I called my cousin who is living at the old house still and asked him to help me find it. Will we find it? And will it be in decent, ridable condition? To be continued!
Today was my sister Amanda's birthday, so that evening my Mom and I bought her some Chinese food and took it over to her place to surprise her. My 3 year old nephew Jordan met us at the door and brought us to see his 2 month old baby sister Neveah. She is really cute! It was great to see my sister and we got to catch up a little while Jordan told us all about Peter Parker and Spiderman's powers. He also made sure we knew that Spiderman loses his powers in the second movie, and that he later gets them back. He is such a great kid!
That night, I went out for a drink at a local bar called Mahoney's where I met up with my friend Tim Adams who worked there. Another friend Dylan McCoul (spelling?) stopped by with his girlfriend and we all spent the evening talking about old times and hanging out. Always a good time. It was an amazing day! Tune in tomorrow for what happens next. ;)
