Interesting day. Pat L., her brother and sister-in-law, and her friend picked me up at 1:00 and we went to the Chowderfest on Long Beach Island. Good grief, what an enormous number of people and what a disorganized affair. The idea is to drink from tiny samples of chowder (New England and Manhattan) obtained from a variety of area restaurants, then vote on which was best. The winners, of course, gets to use its standing in ads, etc.
Are they frigging kidding? It was so mobbed you could barely get to one venue, let alone ten or twelve. I simply picked up five one-swallow-sized samples from a single place and fought my way out of the crowd that packed the big tents. Ate and drank them in five minutes, accompanied by a beer. Members of the rest of our party happen to be considerably overweight and they had difficulty with the event, but were game. The weather threatened all day to rain, and it alternated between being too hot and too cool. It cost $22 dollars to get in--outrageous, I thought, considering the scarcity of the food. However, it was actually pretty much fun--like my first and only cruise a few months ago, I wouldn't want to do it again for a long time, but was glad to have had the experience.
Back at Pat's, we chatted and got to know each other while she cooked a clam and spaghetti dinner. Her in-laws are so interesting--which goes to show about pre-judging people. They have a 140-acre farm in upstate New York; nearest neighbor is seven miles away. In earlier days, they had had horses, pigs, chickens, ducks, and had raised most of their own produce. Jean, the wife, still has a large garden. I greatly enjoyed hearing about such a life, so different from mine.
Didn't get home until after 9:00. Skyped Ellen and we had our usual Sunday evening chat. Very nice day altogether.