Happy? Fifth of July.

The free time I was blessed with on the third and fourth was taken up with very important household issues – like, oh, a bit of cleaning, reading, listening to the Broadway Channel through TV, (yes, I know…how gay! Guilty as charged.) a bit of TV viewing, surfing, reading favourite blogs, and cooking.

It may sound like a lot more than it was in real time. I enjoyed everything I accomplished and the ability to do it at a leisurely pace made for all the more fun.

Topping off the Fourth was an hour long phone call from my friend Dione; one of two women organizing the upcoming reunion in New Orleans in less than two weeks. We talked food (of course), photography, friendship and the reality of seeing people we've not seen in decades. It was a most relaxing way to end the day and I slept well.

The fifth however, was a very different experience. Let me back up a bit…

Friday was the Fourth of July – cookouts, fireworks, many tourists, and (fortunately for us all) great beach weather.

Immediately following the fireworks last evening (that prematurely shot their wad a full hour before they were to do so) an enormous storm moved through the area and, as we say down south, that’s all she wrote.

Now keep in mind that Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays are “check out-check in” days for the weekly house, condo, and apartment renters. Do you see where I’m going with this? Yes. Jackasses! There is no other way to put it.

Today, the fifth of July being a Saturday the day-trippers, over-nighters, and weekly renters leaving the beach towns from Ocean City, MD north to Rehoboth and Lewes Beaches made traffic a nightmare that didn’t let up for hours as the increasing flow of thousands of vehicles clogged major arteries heading north and bringing traffic on the Coastal Highway to a complete stop.

Now, if you please, the Fifth also turned out to be an overcast and humid day with a chance of storms – no day for the beach – so what do the rest of the tourists do at times like these, class? They go shopping at the outlet malls in Rehoboth. So, stir them into this already toxic mix and you come up with 35 miles of gridlock. A scene of almost total immobility.

No one involved appeared to have a clue that they were the problem.

The stoopid. It burns.

Along with the me-first drivers, those on their f**king cell phones, vehicles containing unrestrained little ones jumping and bouncing around, to the pot-bellied Hell’s Angels wannbes on their Harley Hogs, the ride was like something out of a Fellini film as I headed home at about 5 pm. Oh, and it took 45 minutes to drive the 7 miles to my sanctuary.

The exciting thing is I get to do it all over again tomorrow. Aren’t you jealous?

And so it goes living in a resort town on the Atlantic coast.

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