Tuesday Morning Beach/Crime Report

Long Billed Curlew in the foam

The bird watching has been wonderful these last few mornings. Curlews, willets, godwits, whimbrels, plovers, and pelicans. I'm not a photographer with a real camera, but I still can't resist.

Pelican taking off after riding the waves

I felt a bit like I like was sticking my long beak into someone's business this morning when I saw a cosmetics bag in the street just a few doors from home. There was a prescription bottle lying there with the mascara and lip gloss and such, so I knew it couldn't be trash. I wasn't sure whether to call the police or maybe just try to find the person whose name was on the prescription bottle. I Googled and bingo. (She's a professional with an office locally.) She thanked me and told me her car had been broken into this morning and that she'd be right over to pick it up. That seemed a bit naive, but I said sure, hoping I wasn't being naive about telling a complete stranger to come over to my house. 

Wisely, she had second thoughts and called the police officer who was already on the case. He came over and got the bag and asked me a few questions. According to his timeline, I picked up the bag just moments after it had been tossed. She's not the only person I know whose car has been broken into lately in broad daylight, so local readers, take note.

The officer wanted my contact info, so I gave him my card which has the cover of my book on the front. What's this? he asked. I explained. We had the so you're a writer conversation, but he was really interested in the book. The story. What? You're reunited with your son?! How's your relationship? What about his adoptive parents? Oh my god, that's amazing. 

Seems like he was either adopted himself or maybe had an adopted child or two. I wanted to ask, but didn't. I did enough minding of someone else's business today. But if you're adopted, or have adopted children, or an adopted sibling, or if you're a birthmother or know anyone who is, you might like to read MY BOOK.

And if you do, thank you from the bottom of my heart. It's a story for everyone and anyone, really. But I love it when it hits someone close to home.

My largest heart rock to date--but too big to carry home.

What the Hell?

Dream:

I was still in his bed while he stood in his miniscule kitchen making coffee. "The cops have been watching me," he said. I wanted to ask if he wasn't too much of a small-time dealer for that, but I didn't know if it would insult him. "It's not just the pot," he said, as if mind reading was just one more thing he could manage to pull off without even trying.
"What then?" I said.
"Welfare fraud, bad checks, dozens of traffic tickets. And the Feds want me for tax evasion."  He pulled the sheet away from me and gave me the look that told me he thought I was beautiful, then waited for me to sit up and handed me my coffee. 
"Well, you ought to get the hell out of town," I said, plotting my own escape. Damned if I'd go down with his sinking ship. He was full of bullshit about being the captain of his life, not bowing down to the man---well, I was just a deck-swabber, cleaning up little catastrophes here and there, enjoying his pot and his bed. I had no qualms about jumping overboard.

It was later that night when I realized I had nowhere to go. I asked my friend Diane if I could sleep on her couch. One night, she said. The next day I went to look at apartments in a building that had a unit I had seen some months ago and liked. But when I pulled up in front the face of the building was sheared off like a dollhouse.  The apartments looked like empty boxes flimsily stacked on top of one another. It seemed indecent somehow, this wholesale peeking inside. No draperies or rugs or furniture. What the hell is happening here, I wanted to know. 

Later, driving around in my car, the cops called my cellphone. I barely know the man, I said when they asked me about him. Friend of a friend. I was couch surfing. Nothing more. I knew it would be trouble for me later, but I called his cell phone to warn him. "Get the hell out of town," I said. 

"Come with me," he said.

I was already driving up the coast. Betrayal, betrayal, my tires sang as they whirred against  the pavement.