Monday Morning Beach Report: Hello El Nino, Hello Full Moon

The ocean is a gargantuan beast, its many mouths yawning tall with foamy tongues stretching farther and farther onto the sand. Not green or blue or silver or gray, all the churning has turned the beast brown. Life guard stations have been pulled from its reach, and where they once stood now lie what the beast has coughed onto the sand. Driftwood resembling half-devoured serpents. Tangles of twigs like flattened birds' nests, each with its own cache of plastic detritus, proving once more that we humans are the great sulliers of the universe. Green, red, blue, yellow. Bottle lids and their evil companion pull-tabs. Straws, strings with their flaccid balloons, pens, piñata leavings, Tic-Tac boxes, half shredded take-out containers. Tiny shards and nubbins of who-knows-what. The beast has regurgitated it all at our feet.