Wednesday Morning Beach Report: Chaos and how peace escaped.

Pelicans. They usually fly in formation, but it was chaos out there this morning.

And the pure white dove of peace escaped capture by my camera.

Maybe you've got her. Congrats. Enjoy. Send her back my way when you're bored, okay?

Saturday Morning Beach Report

Pelicans at Hollywood Beach

 There were surfers and many Saturday morning beach walkers. I was alone though when I spotted  the man walking with his bike at the water's edge. I'd seen him the other day swearing at himself, at his bike, at the universe. I kept my distance. I think he's the guy with the eyepatch that I had a conversation with some months ago. He wasn't shouting obscenities that day, but was definitely on a bit of a rant. He told me the sun wasn't really the sun. It was a fake sun launched into the sky by the military. He told me the military was controlling the tides. That we were all being watched. He told me he'd been shot in the head, and that he had terrible learning disabilities and chronic pain. He didn't frighten me then, exactly, though I was wary and aware. This morning I had a bad feeling as soon as I saw the guy wheeling the bike. There really aren't any bike riders on the sand, so I figured it must be the guy with the eye patch, and I headed the other way just in case he was still raging.

A dark sail in gathering seas.

June gloom makes for strange beauty these mornings on the sand. I could have walked for hours, but I have things to do. Little things, big things. Like filing away more papers in my mother's file box. Like trying to convince the insurance company she's dead so she won't be paying her premium, like scrubbing the last of the wheelchair scuffs off the walls. I have the final draft of my estate plan and will to read, home maintenance chores to keep the ever howling beast of my HOA at bay. But I took a moment away from all that to learn how to teach Siri to call me by a new name. My Siri, by the way, is a guy with an Aussie accent. And he now calls me "Oh Wizard of Many, Many Jobs."

Wednesday Morning Beach Report

Pelican Feeding Frenzy

Gull Feeding Frenzy

And do you see those pebbles?
I had a beach glass feeding frenzy.

Friday Morning Beach Report

Two tall ships beneath two stripes of cloud.

Pelicans fishing the waves and a fisherman, sitting in his beach chair not fishing.

An adolescent boy throwing sticks into the water. 

Plenty of sticks to be had.

Lots of debris on the sand. Mostly mother nature's own detritus. Bark, sticks, stumps, large branches and a couple of tree trunks.

A day like this almost always yields treasure.

Mother Nature's rendition of Degas.

Friday Morning Beach Report

I still have not resumed my regular beach walks, but I did dash to the sand before I went to the gym for my T'ai Chi Chih class. I saw a line of pelicans and a group of circling terns.

And the ocean looked like this:

Wednesday Morning Beach Report

Ghost boat.
And the pelicans on the jetty are still as statues.
Terns circle and cry but never commit to plunge for a fish.
Maybe there are no fish.
A single sea lions leaves the lazy dock life, undulating straight and fast for the harbor's mouth and
passes a couple perched on the rocks.
They are silent. Turned toward one another, heads hung low. For them the water, the birds, the boat, the sea lion do not exist.

Tuesday Beach Report: Majesty and Macabre Wreckage

This is the majesty.

This is the wreckage.

It looks as though there was a great undersea fire and the blackened remains were disgorged on the sand.

Mostly natural materials with birds sifting through the detritus.

Lots of driftwood looking like petrified serpents.

But plenty of manmade crap in the tangle. Lots of one-eyed sunglasses.

 I believe this is called holdfast. It has let go.

Friday Beach Report

 Fog.

Pelicans.

Pirates.

And in other news, I have not fucked up a single thing yet today. Yesterday there was more bad phone juju. I went off for my full day (as in 8 hours--not 24)  off from caregiving, and left my phone at home. I hurried back to get it and then went back to the charming little spot on the water I'd almost gotten to for breakfast. It was closed.

But my life is ship-shape (ahem.) If that's the ship that I think it is, there's a piece of my past on it. I believe it's this very same boat as this one:

That's daughter C, second from right. The Someone and I were on that boat (he took the wonderful photo) a million years ago. And if you're a longtime reader of this blog, you know that the marriage ran itself on the rocks not too long after that, and that this blog had a rather charming and funny name shortly thereafter, which due to a restraining order, I stopped using. The Someone is referred to only as the Someone due to the same restraining order. And my, what a lifetime ago that seems. No matter how hard the caregiving situation is here in Margaritaville, I think I'd keel over (ahem, ahem) if I ever again had to return to the no-man's land (that might be a seafaring term too) of life with a husband who shunned me.

Monday Morning Beach Report

The ocean was brushed with silver this morning. Surfers and pelicans amazed each other with their feats of grace and skill.

As an added bonus, the local fire department water rescue squad was out drilling. With bright red shirts over their wetsuits and matching red helmets, they divided into drowning victims and rescuers. When the victims got quite far out beyond the huge waves and began waving their arms, the rescuers skipped into the surf with flippers in one hand and a life belt on a rope in the other. Once they were knee deep in the water, they put on their flippers and stroked like crazy to the victims who were then belted and towed to safety. It was heartening to know these guys practice these skills.

And meanwhile, some of those clouds looked like they might be making big plans.

Blessings to all those in the east coast blizzard.

"I'm in it for the endolphin rush" --quote from Postcards from the Edge

Dolphins are too hard too hard to photograph. So here's a pair of terns. It looked like an argument.  

The beach this morning walk yielded many dolphins (many of them babies) twirling out of the waves, and a pair of body surfing sea lions. Somehow that wasn't enough for me. The day devolved into anxiety, and I suppose it was a good reminder of how I used to be about 97.6 per cent of the time in those early years post divorce. 

It rarely happens now, and when it does, I ask why instead of thinking, well shit, this is the way it is. This is the way I am.  It might be that I have some pre-flying anxiety  since my mom and I will be going to the east coast soon for her annual trip, and after I leave her at my brother's place I will be flying around here and there. I can handle that. It might be because last night I dove into the inner depths of Dan's iPad and found beginnings of songs he'd started but never finished. So I emailed them to myself. Like this:

How I long for your crazy sadness,
Enlightening gladness
Inexplicable madness

And then this morning when I woke before six and turned on my computer, wow--for a split second, Dan was alive because there was email from him in my inbox!--and I suppose that started my day in an unbalanced fashion. I could not concentrate on writing at all today, but did manage to read, so that's something. 

I drank two glasses of wine with dinner while my mom and I talked about the birds that will be showing up this winter. The buffleheads. The grebes. It was your basic "Tell me about the rabbits, George" conversation.We're waiting for those winter birds. And we're hoping for pelicans. The first winter they were diving into the marina non-stop, the next winter not so much. Who knows how it will be this winter. Who knows.

Then This Happened: Snowy Plover Nest Follow-Up

This is the spot on the beach where I discovered the Snowy Plover nest yesterday. This morning I was thrilled to see that there's fencing around the area, and a sort of cage dropped on top of the actual nest. I'm not sure if it's the Audubon Society or the State Wildlife folks who do this, but it certainly was a timely response. (This cage does not hamper the birds movements--they can walk in and out.)

The next photo shows why it's so crucial to protect the nest.

How would you ever spot eggs that look like rocks if you were driving a truck across the sand?

Based on the birds I saw this morning, I'm pretty sure there are at least a couple more nests out there on the open sand. When I get the fancy birder binoculars I ordered, I'm going to go back out to that spot and have a look.

Am I having fun? Yes, I am. This morning's beach walk also included dramatic divining pelicans, whimbrels, and black-bellied plovers. Paradise. Right here. Right now.

Bird-O-Rama

My photos do not come close to capturing the beauty of the birds placidly riding the waves in between fishing forays. Pelicans, gulls, terns, cormorants, grebes all bobbing and dipping and diving together.

In addition, I'm happy to report that a few buffleheads have appeared in our portion of the marina. They're just as striking as the photo (from Wikipedia), and in shape, bear a resemblance to bathtub tug boats. My mom calls them her ships. Which can be a little confusing since she also talks a lot about the boats that come and go in the marina. 

Sea Lions in Margaritaville!

I was just waking from a nap when I heard the woosh of breath and a gentle splash. A different sound from the immense splash of a diving pelican. Sea lions!

I went downstairs and told my mom, and we went out to the patio to watch them. The pelicans continued to soar and dive, and I found myself wondering if there had ever been a tragic pelican-sea lion collision.

And then there was a sort of "explosion" near the dock across the way where the sea lions were swimming under water. Dozens of small silver fish flew out of the water. Sea gulls descended. I pinched myself to see if I was awake. Fish exploding out of the water. Sea lions. Seagulls. Pelicans. In my back yard.

Oh, what a wonderful world.

Bird of the Day: Pelican

I've seen plenty of pelicans on boat rides and while walking on the beach since I moved to Margaritaville. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned them in a number of posts--and, indeed, pelicans merited a bird of the day mention last spring not long after I bought my house. Until a couple of Sundays ago, however, a quick fly-by was the only back yard sighting. The recent excitement began with a very large pelican paddling by our boat dock. Then came the breathtaking swooping and diving. It was the pelican super bowl around here with my mom and me cheering after each splash.

I've learned that while there are eight species of pelicans, only two do the amazing dive. This acrobatic feat now occurs with some regularity just outside my window. Unfortunately, being the ridiculously bad photographer that I am, I've only been able to capture the dive's aftermath.

This morning there were two pairs of pelicans (or the romantic in me imagined them to be pairs) floating by in the water while two more pairs circled and dove. Why so many pelicans all of a sudden? It's mating and nesting season. And with the perfect nesting environment in the massive sand dunes beyond the canal less than a block away, I'm guessing that there might be an opportunity for viewing the maiden flights of baby pelicans in a couple of months. Baby. Pelicans.

photo credit: the picture of my mom and me was taken by M with her iphone. The iphone is, according to M, the best invention since fire.

Report from Pillville: Pills

We drove to the endoscopy in the dark. My mother couldn't have coffee or breakfast before the procedure, so, in solidarity, I had neither coffee nor breakfast. There were forms. There was waiting. Then I walked to Starbucks while she swallowed a camera. Or something like that. I am not curious about medical procedures. I don't really want to know the details or to see what is being done. Afterwards, she was cheery and remembered nothing. Afterwards, I was relieved, but not so much so that I didn't remember my worry. When does relatively non-invasive cross the line into invasive? When you are 88 and somewhat frail, that line is not so much a line, but a hair's breadth, a microscopic filament, a razor's edge.

And now there is the pill to take on an empty stomach. And the pill to be taken with food. And the "poison"powder, which must not be consumed within three hours of other medications, that I mix in the blender with orange juice and banana and serve with a straw in order to bypass at least a few taste buds. There are all the other pills taken in handfuls three times daily. And there is willingness, and a martini, and talk, and work, and reading and crocheting, and pure amazement at herons and pelicans, and waiting and waiting for the little songbirds to discover our new bird feeder.

I sometimes feel that I am living with someone who knows well that narrow corridor that leads to a door with a spiked threshold and a sign that says, "Do Not Back Up!" And sometimes I think she is right there reading the sign, and thinking, well, who cares?--who needs to worry once you've passed through that door? And sometimes I think her eyes are so keen, she sees the sign from the far end of the hallway and has no intention of approaching that doorway. But still, she and I, we know that threshold is there. And once you cross it, there is no coming back.

Do Not Change the Channel

Like many children, my grandchildren have been raised on TV and videos. Staring at a screen first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and plenty of time in between. I don't hanker for the chirp and drone of the TV in the background as company, and during visits from my son and his family, I would often turn the TV off when I found that no one was really watching it anyway. This visit things were different. I have no TV here at my new house. Yes, they came with their various small screens, but I think the ocean proved to be more mesmerizing. "Can we go back to the beach?" was the refrain of the past few days, and we grown-ups obliged.

We even took a boat ride to Anacapa, one of the The Channel Islands. A large sea lion lounged on the edge of a boat dock setting up the expectation for wildlife even before we left the harbor. Thirty minutes or so out into the ocean, the dolphins arrived. Dozens of them in the distance at first, and then scores mores, rocketing closer and closer until they were almost close enough to touch, racing along side of the boat or leaping out of the water. A couple of seals popped their heads up, too, and there were more sea lions than we could count on the rocks near Anacapa. Sea gulls hovered above, and squadrons of pelicans were so numerous they became practically became mundane.

I tried to mitigate the media's influence with my daughters, allowing only an occasional video or TV show when they were little and, starting with kindergarten they went to Waldorf School where TV, movies, videos, computers and electronic games of all kinds were discouraged altogether. I felt like I was only partially successful when I was in the thick of it all, and would have probably caved far more often if it weren't for the support of our Waldorf school community. It's so clear to me now that nature is the only real competitor for the pull of the media. And kids want to do things. Sitting means flipping a switch and waiting to be entertained. Being out in a boat on the water, chasing the waves, digging in the sand, playing outdoors, walking the dog, doing chores--there's a satisfaction to all of those things that doesn't seem to crave passiveness.

The flat blue water we were lucky to sail on yesterday was almost like a screen. And real live animals popped right out of it.  I love you, Mother Nature.

Birds and Their Figures of Speech

Last night there was a great blue heron on my boat dock. It walked from one end to the other on those implausible legs, and then bent to water, stretching its neck like a magic trick. For a minute, it looked as though it was thinking about walking up the ramp to my patio. It would have been tall enough to lift the latch on the gate with its beak.

I've seen pelicans swoop low over the marina, too--and egrets, cloud white above the blue water.

I have a pigeon nesting on my balcony--which, I suppose is not a good thing if you subscribe to the theory that pigeons are just rats with wings. While I don't especially like huge flocks of pigeons, I'm okay with one nest. The cooing is a sweet sound. No wonder we refer to love talk as cooing.

There are lots of figures of speech that relate to birds:
Fly the coop.
Birds of a feather flock together. --one of my Dad's favorite cautionary sayings.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Bird-brained.

Feel free to add to the list.