Each year, our friend Steve has a birthday, which he very kindly shares his with our dear friend, Meyung. “Yum,” as I like to call her, is one of those friends who gathers people together – when she lived around the corner from me in Brooklyn, she was the one who threw BBQ’s at her pad as soon as the weather was nice enough, Thanksgiving feats, Sunday night dinner parties…..her place was a little haven of people coming together and eating good food. My kinda friend, my kinda place.
This past year, Meyung moved to Boulder and suddenly….June 24th belonged only to Steve. At my birthday dinner in February, we decided that we would have a celebration…..just for Steve….that would make up for all of the years that he was overlooked, the one day a year that he stood in the wings, just waiting to emerge the star. This was his year.
Stacey, Greg, Tina, Rusel, Steve and I all went together for a one-weekend share on Fire Island. Located about two hours outside of NYC, Fire Island is a special little spot where we have all had house shares together over the years and we decided, in honor of Steve, to do it again this summer.
Because we didn’t have the cash to rent the entire house, we shared it with about five other people, which was a gamble but worked out nicely as the other people were really laid-back and cool. There is a bit of a young, drunk element to Fire Island and luckily nobody in our house leaned in this direction.
Fire Island is a barrier island off the coast of Long Island and the town where we stayed, Ocean Beach, is only accessible by ferry. Cars aren’t allowed in this area, which gives the entire village a quaint vibe. Everyone walks or rides bikes to the beach, to the area that has restaurants and shopping, and back to their homes. Deer roam freely and the place has a nice, small community feel.
We kicked off the weekend on Friday night by BBQ’ing and
eating some of Steve’s cake that Tina brought. Rusel and I arrived around 8:30
and as soon as we arrived, we checked out the house. It wasn’t horrible, but it
was far from nice. It was clean (enough), but it was really old. There was one
small bathroom upstairs for all four extremely small bedrooms, and one bathroom
outside with a separate shower.
The four bedrooms were claustrophobically tiny. Each room had a bunk bed and a single bed next to it and just enough room in between the two to walk. Our room brought back memories of the Trans-Siberian train for me -- miniscule with bunk beds. Rusel and I were sharing a room with Steve, but he decided to sleep on the couch downstairs because the room was so small and hot. Oh yeah….Al Gore would be happy – no air conditioners!
I kind of just decided to pretend that we were camping, just a little bit better – and that helped me deal with the conditions. Plus, we were all in it together and that helped. We spent the weekend on the beach, BBQ’ing, playing some extremely intense games of Trivial Pursuit, and laughing. The highlight of the weekend was definitely Stacey’s artistic birdcage creation. We found a birdcage in the back yard and Stacey took our In Touch Magazine and People that we had bought to read on the beach, cut out the celebrities, and put them into the cage. It was pure brilliance and we put it outside our house and watched as people stopped to marvel. It really was hilarious to see people’s reactions – most people got it and one person even clapped
Sunday night came too quickly and Tina and Rusel went back to the city. In Rusel’s place, our friend Liz came out. We met Liz last year in Perth through the lovely Krista, and she was a definite highlight of Australia – we both absolutely loved her. So when she said she was going to be passing through New York on the way to her new home, Vancouver, we insisted that she stay with us. She was truly one of the best houseguests ever. She fell in love with New York City, was happy to go off on her own, and really just soaked up the city. We felt bad about leaving her alone at our pad but we’d been planning Fire Island for months, so she stayed in the city but ended up coming out for one night.
That night, we went to Houser’s, one of the bars in town, and they had a live band there that night called the J. House Band. They were absolutely amazing! They played covers, but really put their own twists on all of the old favorites. When they played La Bamba, towards the end of the night, the entire dance floor turned into one crazy frenzy of insane dance moves. It was one of those unexpectedly amazing nights that only comes along every once in a while, and Liz was such a great dancer. Steve even kicked up his heels the entire night and his dance moves were also dangerous!
The one thing that I will say that is a little bit
off-putting about Fire Island is the people there, unfortunately. In most
tourist destinations, like Hudson, people are excited about having tourists and
go out of their way to make sure that visitors feel at home. Ocean Beach, the
village where we usually stay, just doesn’t have this attitude at all. The
locals there are extremely unfriendly and the list of town ordinances is long
and unnecessary. People can be ticketed for eating on the sidewalk (seriously),
there is no food or drink allowed on the beach (causing people to literally
hide their snacks as police officers walk by on the beach), no games of catch
on the beach, and on our little “street” there was a HUGE sign that said “NO
FOOD OR DRINK BEYOND THIS POINT” and someone had gone to the trouble of spray
painting a line on the sidewalk to signify where people can and cannot drink.
There are police officers everywhere and the town has a slightly militant feel
to it. Perhaps it’s because the island is so small and people are very
territorial, but in the end it almost ruins the experience.
But in the end, we really did have a great time and it went way too quickly. I took the ferry back on Tuesday night so I can spend some time with Rusel before I leave on Saturday morning to see Kate in Maine. More on that later. Until then, Happy 4th to everyone!
Comments