Welcome to Seaside, let the dark clouds roll in

As has been documented here, the last 2 years, my trips to Seaside Park NJ have created some not so great memories. On Thursday of the 2009 trip, I was hit with possibly the worst ear infection of my life. Then last year, also Thursday, we the horrendous car accident that literally was inches away from taking my life. Needless to say, I was not looking forward to Thursday but, thanks to weeks of prayer and a sedative I was able to make the trip relatively calm.


First the good news: Thursday went off without a hitch.



Now the Bad news: My mother’s car ended up needing a new alternator when we couldn’t start it up on Tuesday. Whatever shit happens…



Lastly, the catastrophic news: The first night we were there, Lauren’s mother called informing us that our friend Christopher had died in a fire that afternoon. We had actually seen the fire on the news, noting that it was on Chris’s block and had taken (false) comfort in the fact that the dog being carried out was not Chris’s beagle Lucky. He was 37 years old and one of those people that everyone should be lucky enough to know at some point of in their life, but sadly, many are not. He spoke his mind, and didn’t care who it offended, but if he liked you, you were golden. Lauren had known him, probably all of her life. I met him during High school when Lauren brought me along when he was cutting her hair and subsequently, he did my hair exclusively until I had graduated college. He got me through a few hair emergencies, recommended styles that I always loved, and always made me feel better about myself but the thing I loved most about our visits were the hours (oh yes, for a hair cut with Chris, you needed to clear the day) we spent talking; I could’ve listened to him forever.

This is a picture I dug up of him from Myspace







After Lauren’s mother went to the wake, she reported that his nieces had gotten him flowers shaped as THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD from THE WIZARD OF OZ (he was obsessed) and that unfortunately, his beloved Lucky had to be put down due to smoke inhalation. This might sound odd but I found comfort in this because those two loved each other so much I couldn’t Imagine Lucky’s life without his Daddy or Chris’s afterlife without the dog he constantly told everyone who listened, “You have no idea how much I love this dog.”

LUCKY




It just happened that Amy Winehouse died the same day, which led me to the thought of the two of them in the beyond and Chris, in his typical outspoken manner, telling the REHAB singer, “Not for nothing, you said of said ‘yes yes yes’ to rehab.”