The Cat in the Hat in the Sand

Saw this half buried in the sand this morning & I couldn't resist #beachfind

Number 7, Number 1x3, and the Best 99 Cents I Ever Spent

I'm turning into a jogging fool, I tell you! No, no, not in those beat up old flip flops. More on them later. I jog barefoot.

Two days ago I jogged - slowly, slowly - the half mile (.6 I say!) across the beach, along the shore, for the 4th time. I felt so good about it that I tried again yesterday and did it for the 5th and 6th times. I was a little disappointed in myself because I couldn't make it all the way on my first crossing, same as two days ago. But after walking the rest of the way across to the rocks and back to the pier side (by my Pookie on the wall) I tried again and - TADA! - I made it. I high-fived the Fonzie rock on the far side then walked back feeling pretty good. After I got back, I still felt good, so I turned around & jogged all the way back again. This time I not only high-fived Fonzie, I jumped up on top of the Flat Stanley rock and pumped my arms up in the air, triumphant like Rocky!

Then today. I made it across on my first try & felt very proud, my 7th time jogging all the way across the beach. I high-fived Fonzie, hopped on Stanley, walked back for a minute or two then decided I would start jogging again when I got to the blue sign. I jogged the rest of the way - which was most of the way - back to the pier, touched the wall, poked Pookie like I do, then turned around and kept on going back to the rocky far side. Again, I high-fived Fonzie, jumped on Stanley with triumphant arms in the air, then kept on jogging all the way back to the pier side again. Since I had walked that little bit after the first time across, I wanted to make up the difference, so I poked Pookie and jogged back an additional 400 steps (yes, I counted) to make it an official 3 laps distance jogged across.

I don't even know who I am anymore! Ha Ha Ha!

I walked the rest of the way back across and counted steps to confirm that I had indeed jogged enough extra to more than make up for my delayed blue sign starting point. I again high-fived Fonzie several times, stomped all over Flat Stanley, then mostly walked, although I did jog a teeny bit just for fun, back to the pier side.

Honestly, I may be the world's slowest jogger. Other joggers often pass me. Yesterday, even a fast walking guy passed me. I'd like to pick up speed, but all in good time. I had two goals I hoped to reach by my 50th birthday which is in 2 months. #1 - I wanted to be able to jog across and back. Today I made it 3 times across. Boo Ya! #2 - I wanted to make it across in 10 minutes. I did that at least twice today, maybe all 3 times.

As for the flip flops: loved, beloved, wonderful, beat up old flip flops. I bought them about a year ago at the 99 Cents Only store. I wear them all the time. I leave them on the wall when I walk (jog!) on the beach. I even bought a second pair for when they inevitably wear out or get stolen off the beach. The first thing happened long ago, the second thing, still no, and that 2nd pair is still fresh and waiting in my closet. Who would steal those crummy old sandals? Nobody could possibly want them. I imagine someone would only take them to be mean or because they mistook them for being abandoned like trash, but that just makes them even better because I don't care. I wonder sometimes when I finish my walk (jog!) if they'll be gone. I imagine saying "oh well" and walking barefoot back to my car, but there they always still are.

They are simply perfect. They've done their job & they're still doing it. They've served their purpose for far longer than I ever expected they would. The right one has that big crack in it so that now the strap occasionally pops out if I put any more strain on it than just the gentlest of strides and even then it sometimes pops out just from stepping off the porch. But I don't care. I still love them. To me, they're still perfectly fine just the way they are. When they're gone, they're gone, and I won't shed a tear. No shoe museum for them! I love them dearly for now and I will remember them fondly when they're gone. They are as impermanent and delightful as life itself. And only 99 cents - such a deal!

:)

Ch-Ch-Changes Maybe ..... or Mysteries of the Deep

Sorry I've been away from these pages for awhile. Sometimes the days are like a blur & I don't know how they pass so quickly.

Anyway, the Ch-Ch-Changes Maybe:

Three times now I've jogged (slowly, very slowly) all the way from one end of the beach to the other, about a half of a mile, actually .6 of a mile by my calculation. I made it from Pookie to Fonzie. I'm very proud of myself for this. For me - a lazy, ex-smoking, overeating, overweight, non-motivated person - it's an amazing accomplishment. It's like a small miracle, both that I could do it & that I even wanted to do it. I did it I think three days in a row while the tide was very low. The last & third time was about a week ago. I couldn't do it again last week. I'm going to blame the higher tide & the slanting sand. Yeah, that's it. The funny thing is, it's not my breathing that gives out as I would have suspected; it's my calves. I think I have bad form & I rely on them too heavily. So now I try to change my form, to use my thighs, hips, and core more. It feels awkward but good. I envision that the movement of my arms is somehow lifting my body up and making me lighter. This jogging thing has become my new project. I like it.

The Mysteries of the Deep:

It was deliciously foggy the other morning. Like this:



The fog is definitely one of my favorite things. It adds such an air(!) of portent to the morning. I love it! It makes me think and wonder about what's lurking under the water just offshore. I imagine mythological beasts and sea dragons ready to burst forth out of the waves to claim the sky in an amazing display of water and fire. Awesomesauce.

Also, just walking in the sand and foggy air is awesome, too. I took that pic of my footsteps and not two seconds later they were washed away by a wave. Something about that impermanence makes me happy and keeps me in check. I took the pics of the fence next to the pier to illustrate low tide versus high tide. One week ago, during low tide and my walks, I was able to easily high five the concrete wall out where the fence ends. The foggy high tide day of the pics, the water came way up almost to where Pookie lives, directly down from the red pylon thing on the pier. I'm not sure if both things are visible in the photos. Anyway, neither day was at exact high or low tide. I've seen it much higher & certainly lower.

That's all for now. Just trying to squeeze this post in before another day flows right by me and through me. The days go fast but I haven't missed one yet!

March Photo Ketchup

Wow, time flies. I have such a backlog of photos & days that I meant to post & never did. They're not all from the beach, but most are. So let's see .....

March 2nd. After the biggest part of the storm had passed we had huge waves. I was with the family in the minivan & no one wanted to get out of the warm car so I took these pics from the driver's seat of the car in the north side parking lot.



Right, not the best photos, I know, but seriously, huge waves, tons of surfers & onlookers. It was crazy! You should have been there.

March 3rd. Not from the beach, but this was the sunset from my back porch.



March 4th. I walked the pier & happened to have my camera phone with me. I don't usually carry one when I walk on the beach because I fear damage from my intense shell collecting activities, even though I did carry an actual camera for at least a month after that time (the 2nd!) I saw a seal very close-up eating fish in the waves, but I digress. Anyway, I was walking on the pier, the sky was still blurry from the storm, but one bright patch of sun was shining down on Long Beach. It was marvelous!



The pictures mostly just show the city lit up, but if you could see the whole sky you would see how everywhere was gray except for the light over our fair city. It looked so very cool.

Also that day, they were demolishing a small storage(?) room next to the pier. It was like this:



It's pretty much rebuilt now. Next time I walk the pier I'll take a picture. Also, it reminds me that I almost always see the oil rig workers on the pier in the morning, and the boat that carries them to and fro. That's definitely a future blog with photos.

Which takes us to March 6th. A good day, a beach walking day, and I had the camera phone with me. As I headed down the ramp from the street to the beach, I was suddenly surprised & sad to see that they had changed the surf report board because I realized I had never taken a photo of the old board. The new one is nice, though. I like it.



When I got down to the water's edge, there was a lot of trash. Thanks, litterbugs!



Nonetheless, it was a lovely post storm day. As I walked back from the north end, I snapped this pic of a moment that filled me with joy and gratitude and reminded me how much I love walking here. It's really, really awesome, in the literal meaning of that word.



Then I took this pic of a seagull. It's not the best illustration of this, but I tried to get a pic of something I've noticed before. When their wings are folded up, their tail feathers look like they have white polka dots. It's super cute. I'll try to get a better pic in the future.



After my walk, I always wash the sand off my feet at the showers next to the parking lot. On this day I looked down and saw this:



I guess I made a startled reaction because a surfer standing nearby told me he had put it there to be funny & that he got startled when he had flipped it over & started to rinse it off & some crabs came scurrying out of the neck hole. The horror! Pretty funny! :)

Here's a pic of my shell stash that day. Not too shabby.



March 10th, here are my sweet kitties:



No more pics until March 16th and they're not in Seal Beach. This last weekend was a best friends weekend. Here we are at my niece's baptism:



Here's my niece:



And here we are later in the afternoon, relaxing outside the Hotel Maya in Long Beach. We had a wonderful time!





Oh, wait! There is a pic from March 16th in Seal Beach. We were down there saying goodnight to the sun. These are my two besties:



We grew up on the same street. We've been friends for 40 years and I love them more now than ever.

Today, after picking up too many shells already, I saw a blue bucket with a handle floating in the waves so I picked it up and used it to hold every nice shell I found. Good thing shells are free because I love them.



Lastly, photos from my back yard. The first photos are the white wisteria that has been absolutely beautiful and has smelled terrific for a few weeks but is now starting to turn brown and drop petals. The second is the happy little gnome village outside my dining room/office window.




Whooh. Caught up. Hope you've enjoyed my March photos. Arrivederci!

The Middle of Forever

"There we are in the middle of forever it seems. Earthlings." - caption on this photo of planet earth, floating somewhere in infinity, taken from the ISS and posted on the Fragile Oasis page on Facebook.

I don't have anything to add, just that I found this to be a very moving and beautiful sentiment that applies to me, you, and everyone else no matter where we are in our lives.

:)

Zen Parable

A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.

Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!

from Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings, Compiled by Paul Reps

Found on page 13 of "It's Always Something" by Gilda Radner

The Sun Before the Storm

Rain is coming tonight and off and on through the weekend but this morning was dry and cold (and sort of high tide) so I headed out to the pier, walked & jazz walked, and snapped this nice picture of the sun on the water on the south side of the pier. Isn't it lovely? Just a moment in time ....



Here's a shot facing the other direction off the pier, towards Long Beach and the Palos Verdes hill.



It's looking pretty stormy!

I love how all the surfers are out trying to catch some rides before the storm rolls in and the water gets all fouled with bacteria like it does when it rains. There was even a middle-aged swimmer guy in a red Speedo. I watched him walk out into the ocean. For a minute the water only came up to his thighs but then suddenly a non-cresting wave came towards him and brought the water level up to his chest. My exact thought was "damn, that looks cold," but he didn't seem to mind and last I saw him, he was swimming north towards Long Beach.

We've had a terrible drought this year so everyone is really thankful that we're finally going to get some rain. I saw a segment on TV last night about some farmers in the Central Valley who've lost everything. It's horribly sad. So bring on the rain! The only worry is that since the ground is so dry it won't be able to absorb all the moisture and we'll end up with a lot of flooding and mudslides. But what am I, an expert? Hardly, but you're welcome for all the bad news!

After a short walk on the long pier, I got all my grocery shopping done and now I'm ready for the rain outside while I remain cozy at home, except for a short walk in the morning with my son's class to go see a play. Hopefully we'll be walking between the raindrops.

:)

Pineapple Express

Hey! So apparently I can upload those photos directly from my new smart phone. Wow, this phone really is smart!

First the pics I couldn't post the other day. Here are the two hill pics. The first pic with the big hill = Palos Verdes as seen from Seal Beach Pier on Feb 3rd, 2014. That's downtown Long Beach to the right.



In the second pic, the little hill = Signal Hill, also taken from Seal Beach Pier on Feb 3rd, 2014. Our house is just a smidge to the right & nearer to the pier from Signal Hill. Downtown Long Beach is to the left.



Lastly, these are the wonderful shells I found on Wednesday, Feb 19th, 2014. I know all these dates because my smart new phone tells me so.



I've had wonderful, fantastic walking conditions all week: very low tide, fine weather, and tons of shells. Yesterday I crammed my left pocket so full of shells I was afraid some would fall out, but my other pocket had my keys in it and I didn't want the still damp (rinsed in the ocean, of course) and salty shells to mingle with the electronic key fob for the car. Also, at the same time, the fingers of my left hand did a great job of holding on to a second huge wad of shells. I purposefully don't bring anything with to help carry them because that would only make my over-collecting worse, and I admit that sometimes I go just a teeny tiny little bit overboard on shell collecting. Which brings me to today.

Today I was determined to only keep perfectly shaped, scalloped shells. I mostly stuck to that, except for two or three abandoned hermit crab shell remnants which I simply can't resist (because they are completely delightful) and I still had a full pocket, though not overflowing. I happily looked for shells, did some jazz walking (more on that later) but I don't think I did the ScarJo (that's more of a non-water thing). I had a wonderful time! I even noticed something new. As I've mentioned before, I have my rock friends at each end of the beach: Pookie and Fonzie. I think I posted a pic of Pookie on here back before my phone got so smart. He's on the cement retaining wall next to the pier.

Here's a pic of Fonzie to jog your memory. He's the pointy "A" (like Fonzie says) rock.



And today, I noticed that there's a baby Fonzie!



See him up there on the tippy top? Isn't he cute?!

Also, I want to give a shout out to my other rock friend, Flat Stanley. I don't think I've mentioned him before.



I appreciate Flat Stanley very much. We became friends because sometimes the tide is too high for me to reach Fonzie for a high five and Stanley is almost always there ready to welcome my feet to step on him.

Then there's this today. A guy pointed out to me that "some" pineapples had washed up on the beach, though I only saw this one.



He was very excited about it and said that they had come from Hawaii. I thought this was unlikely and that it was more likely that they had come down from somewhere up the San Gabriel river, a.k.a. the wash, the water channel that carries all the trash down from the mountains to the sea and empties out just north of Seal Beach. A lot of strange things wash up on the beach. Also, I've read that most of the pineapples you buy in Hawaii weren't even grown in Hawaii, but what do I know? Anyway, I didn't want to be a buzzkill, and maybe they did come all the way from Hawaii, so I just asked, "do you really think they could have come that far?" and he said yes, it just depends on the currents. I have no way to verify where the pineapple(s) came from, so let's just go with Hawaii because it made that guy really happy.

Finally, about the jazz walk. I do it to pump up my walking a little bit, but because jogging poops me out too fast, I like to do what I call my jazz walk. It's more of a bouncy fast walk than a jog but my arms kind of do what they would do if I was jogging, and also I throw in a little bit of jazz hands on purpose. The ScarJo thing is that I sometimes like to imagine that I'm Scarlett Johansson with her rockin' body and I walk how I imagine she would walk and hold my body how I imagine she would hold her body as she walked. Maybe that sounds weird but it's kind of fun. I spend a lot of time alone in my own head. Don't judge.

I realized earlier this week that I'm kind of an optimist. I have a generally positive outlook on life. In fact, lately even the word "generally" makes me feel cheerful so I say it as much as possible. I have worries and problems and negative thoughts just like everyone, but I make a point to set them aside as much as possible. As I walked along the beach, enjoying the feel of the ocean washing across my feet, it occurred to me that even if I lived in a cave where the only light that ever reached me was a shaft of sunlight that came in for only an hour a day, I would praise that light and look gleefully forward to it each day. I think this ability to look on the sunny side of things is pretty useful.

My sincerest best wishes to those who remain buried in snow far away from our beautiful, dry and warm, west coast. May the warm sun soon shine upon your faces!

Catching up

Long time no write. It's not that I've been too busy, it's just that, well, I'm lazy, it's true. So let me start(and maybe finish?) with some random photos I've taken over the past few months. The first pics are of birds in December and/or January. The weather has been cool but not too cold. We are definitely spoiled out here what with people in the Midwest and back east completely buried in snow for weeks and months. Anyway, without further ado, birds:




I got a new phone earlier this month. The weather was a bit cold, plus it was generally high tide times so I was walking the pier a lot & snapped a few pics. In the first pic, the big hill is Palos Verdes. In the second pic, the small hill is Signal Hill, and we live to the right & a little forward from it.

Hmmm....Having trouble uploading those 2 photos as well as another photo of my shell bonanza from yesterday. Oh well. Suffice it to say that this has been a wonderful walking week so far. I've been back down on the beach and the tide has been very low which makes me a happy girl.

There's a lot more I mean to say about my jazz walk and ScarJo walk, but I'm bored with this, so another time. Adieu!