As Usual, Galveston Was A Festival of Food & Fun... Day One

WoW! I am thoroughly and completely exhausted although I'm so anxious to tell about the many things we did, but I really need to begin with the day before we left. My golfing friend Judy forced me to go play golf with her that day, even though I had not finished packing & still had a gazillion things to do before we left on our flight at the a$$ crack of dawn the next morning.

Throughout the 18 holes I thought I was playing pretty well but she wouldn't let me see the scorecard, so I just played on. We'd had a few cocktails which always seems to relax me & makes me play more fluidly, shall we say. We were fairly looped by the end of the round, at which point she revealed my score to me. I finally broke 100! Alright, it was only 99, but I've been struggling for so long to break the triple digits and I was happy, happy, happy. So, we left & went to my house for a celebration drink (or five). When Mr. Snooty came home he was happy for me as well, but not so much so that I'd gotten nothing done and that I was by then rendered completely useless for anything more than sitting around giggling. Yes, I'm a bad person for that.

The worst of it was that we were getting up around 4:00 AM to be ready to leave for our 6:15 AM flight to Houston Hobby and my friend (whose hubby had joined us later) didn't leave until after 10:00 PM. So, after they left, I stumbled back to my room to pack. By the next morning (after like 4 hours of sleep) I had no clue as to what I'd packed, but wasn't about to go through & look because I didn't have time.

What I found when we arrived at our friend's beach house was 2 swimsuits, 5 pareos, and completely ridiculous items I would have never taken to the beach. Gee... Go Figure! I showed my friend my suitcase and she broke into doubled over laughter, as did I. She said "Damn Girl. You really were in some kind of state to pack like that". Yup, things had been thrown into the suitcase in a Helter Skelter fashion and aside from the swimsuits & pareos, nothing seemed to have anything to do with the other. I'd included a stained polo and an old skort, an extra pair of sandals, my medications bag, my makeup bag, my hairdryer and my jewelry bag (I'd had no intentions of wearing any jewelry at the beach). I also didn't plan to wear makeup because it won't stay on in high humidity and/or rain.

So this, of course, meant that I needed to go shopping. Quickly. Our Louisiana friends had arrived Wednesday night and apparently they had all been in similar condition the night before, so we were all sympathetic to one another's gut-splitting hangovers delicate conditions.

We immediately decided we needed to go downtown to The Strand and hit several of the shamefully overpriced upper end stores. The guys didn't want to be dragged into places where they'd have to witness our total disregard for money, so we took two cars & agreed to meet up for lunch at The Oyster Bar. We each made some fun purchases at the first shop and not so much at the second one. Still, it was fun looking at clothing & shoes that cost over $500.oo and up per piece. Kind of. The only thing I bought at the second place was a canvas grocery bag. Yes, my attempt to Save The Earth. Probably would have been smarter to just send the money to the tree huggers directly (no insult intended here).

After at least 5 calls to our cell phones begging imploring us to get moving, we finally proceeded in the direction of lunch. As always, the oysters were excellent and the sauce was spicy hot. We had drinks all around then ordered some much needed food. I was at least able to remember to take a picture of the place, but somehow forgot to get some clicks of the food. I know. What was I thinking? Really, I wasn't thinking because we were all talking 90 mph, trying to catch up with one another's lives.

When we finished lunch, the guys had some things they needed to go get at the store for dinner, so we parted and went off to shop some more run our errands. We needed to get everything done that day because it would be impossibly crowded & difficult to get around the island once Friday arrived. It was already getting crowded & hot and we just wanted to get back to the house so that we could collapse on the beach.

So, while we were still downtown we stopped in at our favorite Cigar & Smoke Shop and bought some lovely tasting *girly* cigars which are approximately the size of a cigarette. We ladies like to have our cognac cigars, mango cream cigars, and passion fruit cigars, with absolutely no apologies to anyone. The hubbys had gone down to the fresh fish market and bought our fresh salmon for that night's dinner and fresh shrimp for Saturday night.

That accomplished, we finally started toward West Galveston Beach where the house is. Once back, we donned our swimwear, played a round of Yard Golf, had evening cocktails on the beach then everyone began their preparations for dinner. Just as I was beginning to take pictures of our divine dinner, I accidentally dropped my digital camera and it went completely dead. I wigged out and almost cried at the thought of all the pictures I'd miss. Okay, fine. I did cry... big weenie that I am. I thought I was doomed with no camera.

So, I had another drink & got over it, deciding to use my crappy disposable waterproof camera which is good for the beach but almost nothing else. Still, I knew it was better than nothing. It still has something like 20 pictures left on it, which I hate to waste, but there's no telling when that will get used up, so I'll take them tomorrow to be developed & have them sent to me online. I think they can do that, can't they? If not, I can at least get them on CD.

We feasted on extremely fresh, delicious grilled salmon with fresh pico de gayo, spinach salad, garlic bread and drank 2 bottles of The Bitch Wine, which was excellent with the salmon. Our host & hostess wound up going to bed first (I think we wore them out) and then the two hubbys left and went to bed. Steph & I wound up staying up late and I'm pretty certain we solved most of the world's problems, but I can't remember what those solutions were now. Imagine that.

To Be Continued Tomorrow...