Summer’s done, but summer bucket list isn’t

Last Updated on Thursday, August 30, 2012 05:19 pm Written by Cindy Nevitt Friday, August 31, 2012 01:00 am

A few months ago, The Gazette published a Best of Summer Guide and invited local luminaries – some of whom work for this very paper – to contribute their wish lists for the summer. Shockingly, I was not one of them.

Undaunted, I made amends for the oversight and produced not one, but two lists of my own, answering the unasked question: What Would Cindy Do (WWCD)?

As summer – as told by the tourism season – comes to a close, it’s time to see how much of my summer bucket list I was able to check off. Turns out, not much. Of the 20 tasks I set for myself, I did just eight, for a 40-percent success rate. Only a pessimist would see that as a 60-percent failure rate.

Here’s what got done:

1) Had a soft-shell crab sandwich sitting on the dock at the Lobster House in Lower Township. Twice.

2) Played miniature golf on one of the boardwalk’s courses.

3) Chilled out at Positively 4th Street Café with my family in the one hour a week none of the four of us is at work. In a crazy, busy household where four people hold seven jobs, finding even one hour of common free time is a major accomplishment.

4) Steamed clams and shrimp in beer (in Unfiltered’s BYOB kitchen).

5) Walked in the surf. This was not intentional as I was doing the necessary legwork for a story and got caught at high tide with my feet in the surf. My 2012 beach badge is still in pristine condition.

6) Had waffles and ice cream at Hobby Horse on the corner of Eighth Street and Ocean Avenue and called it “dinner.” Twice.

7) Caught a show not at the Music Pier, as I had imagined, but at Ocean City High School. It was the Ocean City Theatre Company production of “Cinderella” and it was very well done. Surprisingly, the midnight performance of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” put on by the Ocean City Repertory Theater on Asbury Avenue, was even more enjoyable.

8) Bought Jersey Fresh produce at the Farmer’s Market at the Tabernacle.

A few activities not on my list – visiting the West End Garage in West Cape May for the first time and watching the twin ferries cross paths from Sunset Beach – snuck their way in.

Here’s what didn’t get done:

1) Eating pizza at the original Three Brothers location on the Boardwalk.

2) Taking a ride on the Ferris wheel at Gillian’s Wonderland and getting a gander from the air of the new Route 52 Causeway.

3) Bicycling over the Ocean City-Longport Bridge.

4) Creating a new lunch special and testing it out at Ready’s Coffee Shop on Eighth Street. While I didn’t carry out on my threat to do that, my son did, making up a lunch special one day of a cheesesteak with scrambled eggs, peppers and onions on a Kaiser roll, topped with french fries. It was such a big sandwich he couldn’t open his mouth wide enough to take a bite.

5) Visiting each of the four frozen yogurt stores that have opened in town and doing a taste test. Didn’t even get to one of them.

6) Taking a whale watching tour. The closest I got to a whale this year was the dead one that washed up over the winter at Seventh Street.

7) Going to the Cape May County Zoo and marveling at the giraffes.

8) Sitting on Unfiltered’s dining room deck and witnessing the sunset.

9) Checking out all the new stores in Ocean City’s “year-round” shopping district on Asbury Avenue before they close for the off-season.

10) Visiting Revel in Atlantic City before it files for bankruptcy.

11) Going crabbing under the 34th Street bridge.

12) Finishing the book Unfiltered started two months ago. I’m still on Chapter 2 of “The Psychopath Test” by Jon Ronson, so I don’t know yet if I pass the test.

Luckily, for those of us who live here, summer is not over as it is for the masses. That means I have another three weeks to knock off the last 12 activities on my list before fall begins. That’s four a week, one every other day.

That’s never going to happen. Maybe next year …

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