the beach today

The other day we found a place where one can get (with a bit of climbing) onto the beach.  Mind you, there used to be stairways over the seawall.  Most of those are history; the ones that still seem to be there on the street side have nothing at all on the beach side, so while you can with hazard get up onto the seawall, you can't get off the wall onto the beach.  Unless you're a fisherman, those guys are like mountain goats, they climb up the rocks and down the other side.  I couldn't do that even when I was a kid, nevermind now.

Anyhow, there's a spot on the north end where the sand movers made a sand trail up the wall with the sand they moved off Ocean Ave, with a large plateau on the beach, from which it is possible to get down to sea level.  Pablo and I went over this morning, he really wanted to go and practically dragged me up and over.  Here's what our beach looks like today.  This is at low tide, the tide looked like it was starting to come in.

Looking north towards NYC - the ramp you see is part of the Highlands Bridge, and the road going up into Sandy Hook, which is closed for the foreseeable future.  The dark area to the left indicates where high tide reaches, so where I was standing is under water at high tide.

Looking south.  There used to be dunes and plants and stuff.  Now it's just sand, but at least there's sand.  We could have water right up to the seawall, but thank goodness we don't.

Aside from the total loss of our dunes, there's really at low tide only about half the beach we used to have, and less than half again of that when the tide is in.

I talk to people everywhere, it's a genetic thing, I think.  And it seems like people here are getting past the initial grief and shock, and into the acceptance and moving on phase.  Myself, I'm into the 'why can't I get an electrician to actually show up' phase, which goes with the 'OMG I can't even get an a/c contractor out to look at the project until the end of January' syndrome.

I think the roofer might be able to get here in a couple of weeks; until then, if it rains, I need an umbrella in the living room.  I'm considering installing a water feature instead of replacing the roof again, it could fill itself with rainwater and have a fountain and some sort of nymph or something as decor.  Maybe a mermaid theme.  Or orcas, or dolphins....too many choices.  This isn't the first time I've had this idea, nor is it the first time I'm totally replacing the roof - the one that's on there now is only 5 or 6 years old.  It looks good, but it doesn't keep the rain out of the house.  Fail.

One of the guys I ran into at the post office today said that only 10% of the people who live in town are actually living here now.  The ones who are here are trying to cheer things up a tad by putting up Christmas lights and such.  One house closer to downtown has Christmas lights on their storage cube, which is sitting in the front yard, apparently holding stuff salvaged from inside the house while the inside is gutted and reconstructed.  If I can find a way to get a picture of it without getting arrested for breaking curfew, I'll post it here.  Curfew is 5pm - 7am, until further notice.  I have a feeling further notice isn't going to happen any time soon.

 The good thing is, most of the major garbage has been picked up.  We only have left a few odds and ends, mainly tvs and other hazardous materials which require separate disposal.  Supposedly those will be picked up at some point, but I guess it's not a high priority.

While we still had the 'pieces of your house' trash all over the place, I got this picture, which kind of says it all: