Carolina Beach Amusement Park

Oh ye of little faith! You probably thought I had given up my experiment of only eating while eating, or at least stopped blogging about it. But no! I have been to the ocean and waded in the waters.

I went to the beach with my friend who was celebrating her birthday. Well, the rest of us were celebrating. She doesn’t think birthdays are anything to celebrate. I say, "why not?" Who doesn’t like presents? Anyway, said friend invited two of her high school buddies to join us from New York and we drove down to the Carolina Coast.

We had fresh local shrimp. Every day. Almost every meal. The best ones we had were at the Shuckin’ Shack at Carolina Beach, after which we went to the boardwalk amusement park. I’ll tell you, if you ever want to feel like you just walked into a David Lynch film, take a stroll there on a Saturday night during the summer.

My traveling companions have only seen each other one time since they graduated—more years ago than they would like me to divulge here in a public space. Consequently they had a lot of reminiscing to do. I, therefore, had lots of time to savor the food while we were eating.

They were talking about things I wasn’t really interested in—my own high school memories are bad enough—so it was very similar to watching TV. I could just sit there and zone out. There were times that I felt like I was cheating a little…then I’d sit back and concentrate on what I was eating. The only thing I regret is that, being allergic to milk, I couldn’t try the deep-fried mac and cheese squares. Yes folks, you heard me—deep-fried mac and cheese. Everyone else said they were “to die for.” And these are New Yorkers!

The thing is, though, I got used to eating with other people. After four days of not eating alone, I came back home and didn’t know what to do with myself after I fixed dinner. I did the usual dance of trying various chairs around the house and settled once again on the porch.

It’s great to be home and hanging out with the pup and the kitty. And it feels really good to be out of the 100+ degree heat on the scorching sand. But I have to admit, it was really nice to have dining companions for four days straight.