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!

FALLING INTO WINTER, OR AM I?

I began this (unpublished) post about two months ago with this:

The calendar still says it's fall but the mornings are feeling more
and more like winter. As I walk out the sand feels very cold

and that's it. For two months I haven't been motivated to finish that post.

Motivation is a funny thing. I've still been walking on the beach in the mornings at least once or twice a week, sometimes more. What I was starting to say above is that, as I walk barefoot in the soft, cold sand in the morning shade on the north side of the pier, as I make my way down to the water's edge I get what I call "foot headaches" because the cold really does kind of get in there and feels sharp like pins and needles and it's somewhat painful. Also, I kind of like it. It reminds me that I'm alive and it makes me look even more forward to and excited about the firmer sand at the water's edge and the warmer, soothing coldness of the water itself.

So I still walk, and although it's been much colder now in the mornings I still enjoy it very much. Actually, this past week we've had Santa Ana winds and 80 degree afternoons which has been pretty great. Living in Southern California really is wonderful. In the mornings I've walked the pier again a few times and I see that some of my morning friends have also made their way up there now. I've survived the stress and joys of Christmas and now I'm just relaxing at home with my son on winter break and eating way too many tamales and cookies. I'm ready to get back to eating less and walking more instead of the reverse.

I don't know if it's because of the change in the seasons or the changing seasons of my life, in fact I don't know why it is at all, but my thoughts have taken an unexpected turn lately. It's a good if not exactly sensible, mom-like direction but it's very real and I like it a lot, in much the same way that I like the cold morning sand, although I'm not expecting any firmer sand or soothing water ahead. I doubt I'll ever publish the draft I've been writing about it because it's really, really personal and some might say foolish and/or weird. Anyway, it's all about me and my past and my present and reveals the wild twenty year old who is still alive inside of me. Like, really alive.

'Mazing Monday!

(copied from Facebook status:) 2nd Monday in a row watching a gigantic seal look for fish in the waves just 15-20 feet offshore. Today he swam on pace with my walk for about 10 minutes & I saw him with an enormous fish in his mouth. AMAZING!!!

A Covina Fish in Paradise

I had an especially lovely, wonderful walk this morning. It was a super dense fog morning, not as thick as it was that day a few weeks ago, but the air was white and richly moist with very limited visibility and a gorgeous halo effect around the sun.

There were the usual birds: noisy seagulls, fidgety shorebirds with all their adorable fuzzy little baby chicks, and also some pelicans doing a delightful flyby over the ocean out just above where the waves begin to grow.

But the greatest treat of all this morning: two seals swimming and gorging on fish just 10 to 20 feet offshore. One of them was so close I seriously could have ran out and touched it and possibly not even gotten my shirt wet. It was rather high tide which means the sandy shoreline descends at a pretty quick slant into the ocean, hence the reason the seals were able to swim so close to the shore, and okay, maybe I would have gotten my shirt wet.

At first I had only seen one of them and I was afraid that it might be sick or in distress since it's so unusual to see a seal so up close like that. Paulina, a morning regular, jogged towards me & stopped for a moment to talk about the seals, which I now saw that there were two of them. She assured me that they were fine and said that they eat the Corvina fish (I thought she said Covina fish - I grew up in Covina LOL!) which eat the sand crabs and that's why they were so close to shore. It was like a seal buffet!

As usual, the beach was none too crowded (just how I like it!)and most of us who were there remarked to each other about the seals and shared our enjoyment of them and the beautiful foggy morning as we passed each other and then continued on alone on our peaceful, solitary walks.

Lastly, just to mention, a girl/woman/lady I often see who in my mind I refer to as Tracy Nelson (actress & daughter of Ricky Nelson) introduced herself as Stephanie, but I still prefer to think of her as Tracy Nelson. Is that bad?

Which Way the Wind Blows

Yesterday morning was cool and cloudy which made for a wonderful morning walk.

This morning was cool and sunny which made for a wonderful morning walk.

I really, really love walking on the beach in the morning.

For most of my life I always went to the beach in the hot sun of the afternoon, to hang out with friends, to party, to get tan. It's only been this last year that I realize that, except for one or two really awesome afternoons, I was doing it all wrong.

Being young I didn't care or believe that my skin would ever wrinkle. Sunblock? Hah! It always seemed stupid and unnecessary even though I always turned pink instead of brown & burned easily. It meant nothing to me, less than nothing. And now my skin is starting to wrinkle and I'm so far away from that careless young girl who made stupid choices sometimes and never thought about the future. I'm the result of that girl & I wish I could talk to her and give her a heads up, about life, about love, & about sunblock, even though she wouldn't listen or take it to heart.

Life after Labor Day weekend

Two weekends ago, two friends & I found ourselves out and about in Seal Beach on the sunny Sunday afternoon of Labor Day weekend. We had a great time hanging out and wandering through some of the shops on Main Street and took a walk out on the pier.

We looked like this:




and the beach looked like this:



which bummed me out & made me want to yell, "hey you kids get off of my beach." I kept in mind that in just a few short days everyone would be back doing their regular routine & I would be back doing mine, once again enjoying my morning walks on my lovely, quiet beach.

On the plus side, we saw a really cute guy on the pier:



So now it's two weeks later. My son is back in school & my mornings are free and are mine all mine. I've spent at least a half a dozen mornings back walking on the beach and collecting shells. Sometimes I walk the beach on both sides of the pier although I really do prefer the north side.

This morning there was a terrific fog with the sun trying to break through. It looked like this:



Something about the fog and the sun was so magical. It felt special to be there. I felt lucky. I felt good.

:)