It's been peaceful-easy feeling here on our vacation by and in the water. The news from afar has been a bit otherwise:

1. •unsettling: yesterday’s Star-Ledger reported that New Jersey's Department of Human Services overpaid some private agencies at least $1.4 million for services that people with developmental disabilities never received
   

2. •controverisal: more commentary, some incendiary, about what’s causing the autism rate to increase to a prevalence of 1% or higher
   

3. •(recalling my former co-blogger Dora’s post about boring autism newsfeed classification 101) ho-hummish: (1) Buy this product and “help children with autism” ; (2) Buy a ticket to this entertainment event and benefit an autism something-a-thon.
   

Really, there oughta be a law against an article just mentioning autism (“Autism specialist buys South Pasadena 3BD condo”) and that article showing up in a newsfeed.

Anyway, a little news from our corner of the world (beach).

We---all three of us---went on a bike ride Tuesday morning. We did almost five miles total, crossing the big boulevard to ride by the bay (beautiful views). We navigated through a commercial area where we had to ride on the sidewalk as there was no shoulder, with me bringing up the rear. We stopped for bagels and juice and rode back in a cool breeze, after which Charlie said "suit on" so to the beach, and into the ocean's big rolling waves, we went.

Back at home, I've inherited one of Charlie's old yellow bikes but the one time I tried to join him and Charlie on a bike ride, Charlie was so jarred (talk about a big change in routine) that I turned around and went home. Here at the beach Jim rented a bike for me, a pale green one with very wide handlebars and (I am always happy for a reference to Greek mythology) "Electra" painted on the frame. We brought Charlie’s own bike to the beach; Jim's rented him a bike in past years but these always have foot brakes, and Charlie is definitely used to hand brakes. (And stopping is kind of important.)

It's been some fifteen years since I rode a bike any distance. I didn't have one in the early days of Charlie's childhood in St. Louis and St. Paul and then our focus became Charlie learning to ride a bike, thanks to Jim. I'm instituting "biking photos" (like the one to the right) as of this post: These are taken not of people (Charlie, Jim) riding bikes, but photos taken while I'm riding a bike. I was trying to get the handlebars of my bike into the picture but I am a bit rusty riding (the last time I rode a bike over any distance was in the early 1990s when I was in graduate school in Connecticut) and, on our first family bike ride, I most certainly did not want to go crashing to the ground with my iPhone in my hand (plus I had half a bottle of Sprite and a half a bagel that Charlie didn't finish in my pockets). 

So now when I write "we ride bikes together," it really is “we” as in tight team o’ three.

This post is also brought to you courtesy of the back of our stationwagon. After the bike riding and the ocean swim and boogie boarding, and after lunch, Jim and Charlie went kayaking all the way around a small island in the bay and Jim worked on Paddling 101.