Friends with Keys

Le mari has been out of town for 8 days. This is a long time in the summer, when school is not in session, I work from home, it is ridiculously hot out and we have no swimming pool. This is just to tell you that I've been a bit overworked and out of sorts lately so when Saturday rolled around and at 7 a.m. promised to be another sweltering day and I had nothing but Oscar-asking-where-we're-going-to-swim on the day's docket, I thought I had to be proactive. Aha! At 8 a.m. I had the epiphany of the two of us going to the Annenberg Beach House in Santa Monica because I've heard how great it is...
By 9 a.m. I've got Oscar in the car with beach bag full of swimsuits, towels, goggles, toys, books (yes, plural, two of them - for me - because Oscar was going to find a friend out of the other kids who'd be at the pool to play with and I would sit leisurely in a chaise longue - see above - reading all day in my fantasy scenario...) So there we are cruising our way to Santa Monica in the bright morning sun and I'm day-dreaming away (or thinking very laser-like about strategic planning for the bag business more likely) when I realize I'm on the 101 N. In layman's speak: the complete wrong freeway (!!) headed for Hollywood and the valley beyond - i.e. no where near the beach. I've already gone a good 10 minutes this way, which means it'll be another 10 min just to get back to where I started from and then another 20 to get to the beach. But while I'm turning around to head back in the opposite direction to then head in another direction in the tangle of LA freeways for the beach, I get a call from my friend Else who tells me, "ah, yeah, the Anneberg, well, you have to be there at like, 7 a.m. to wait in line to get a number, to then at 8:30 buy a entrance ticket to get you in at 10." In other words, in my world, impossible. Pretty certain I will never see the likes of the Anneberg Beach House.
Shame, it looks lovely. We go home. You should of heard Oscar's howl when he saw us pull up to our house after 20 minutes in the car. Whaaat? Yep, your mama's not the best day-trip planner, kid.

After various plans to keep cool are thought up then shot down by me or Oscar, we have the bright idea to call our friends with a house in Point Dume, Malibu. Score. They're there, they invite us out and by noon we are in the car (again) headed for an hour trip to the private beach at Point Dume. Here's a new part of LA, I'd never seen. The "key" beach. On my way up the PCH, I pass lines and lines of cars waiting to get into the public beach parking lots, suckas. (JK.) We sail past them all and drive to our friends house, park the car, grab the kids and KEY - no joke, this beach is behind 2 - count 'em - 2 Fort Knox style gates - and walk to the beach.
Beyond the locked gates, you walk down a long path which leads you here, bliss - replete with Malibu-lifers and new comers alike all calmly enjoying the surf and sand and content in the fact that their good fortune has assured them a key to a private beach with no lines. Oscar and his friend body surfed all day in the perfectly manageable waves (apparently money can buy good waves, too), I even took in a few and our summer day was saved by the good graces of friends with keys.

Point Dume image from: flickr.com/photos/segamatic/2945580861/
Annenberg Beach House images from: annenbergbeachhouse.com/