Catalina at last!

Sorry, no picture, but when we were coming home on the freeway this afternoon my son noticed that he could see Catalina, so we drove up to the top of Signal Hill and thar she blows! We said hooray, waved hello, then headed on home.

Summer day trip to Catalina coming soon!

Best shell day ever!

Silly Old Pier!

It's really more sad than silly. The building at the end of the Seal Beach Pier used to be a Ruby's Diner. Burgers, sandwiches, salads, sort of a 50's motif with red booths, black & white checkerboard floors, etc. Bustling. Family friendly. Not a bad place at all.

At the end of 2012, Ruby's and the city of Seal Beach were unable to reach an agreement and so, after 25 years, the Seal Beach Ruby's is no more.

And so now, in the touristy midst of summer, after months of continuing arguments, lawsuits, new proposals (and lack thereof), and legal wrangling, the old building still sits empty at the end of the pier. It sits there like nothing but an eyesore. It's such a sad sight, and so unnecessary. The city claims that Ruby's didn't do some agreed upon repairs & Ruby's claims it did. The city set a deadline for new business proposals & the only company that made a proposal was the company that owns Ruby's. The city extended the deadline & Ruby's withdrew its proposal.

A few months ago, back when I was still walking on the pier, I watched as a construction crew removed all the booths and appliances from inside and basically left nothing but an empty shell. A few weeks ago the city declared the building a public nuisance. The end of the pier - the best part! - which used to be so wonderful, filled with families and friends and lovers and fishermen and walkers, has been closed off by a chain link fence for months. Perhaps most of the happy people enjoying the beach don't really care but to me (and undoubtedly to many others) it just seems like such a shame.

I love you Seal Beach, but you really dropped the ball on this one. No matter the truth of your arguments, you've let your treasure fade because that pier - that beautiful, long wooden pier - is the crown of your city, and the building/restaurant/whatever you like at the end of that pier is the crowning jewel. Or was, I mean.

Get it together folks!

Me & sparkling water making friends ....

Saw this little guy right in the middle of the beach, just sitting all alone in the sand. I was afraid for his possibly dire fate, and so.....

I let him go over by the rocks, near Fonzie :)

Hello Summer!

The first day of summer was last Saturday. I didn't make it down to the beach until close to sunset but then I had a lovely walk. A really, really lovely walk. The photos above may give you some idea.

I had been cooped up in the house all day with my homebody kid & was grateful for the relief. I love the summer and I love my son but each pulls me away from the other. School's out so my son is on my time now all day long everyday. I can either force him to come with me (which he's totally not into, sadly) or make other arrangements and just go without him. His complaining kind of harshes my mellow anyway, so in the past I've tended to let his hermit-like ways keep me home much too much but this summer I just can't do it. If I don't get out & walk my mind goes too squirrely. I get ants in my pants and static in my attic. Something about that stretch of beach really irons out my wrinkles in a wonderful way.

So let's see..... I've made it down there four out of the past five days so I'm doing pretty good. The more I walk the better I feel, so I keep on walking.

A lot of days they have surfing school. Isn't that great?!!!



Then yesterday and today they've been having Junior Lifeguard training.



I love seeing all the kids, little and not so little, surfing and running up and down the beach. Too cute!

Other fun stuff: this morning all my usual favorite morning walkers were there: the two older men I call the Russians & the lady I call the Russian lady, even though they don't appear to know each other, we just all happen to walk at around the same time. I imagine that the men are Russian Mafia (no idea what their ethnicity really is) & that when the day comes they will spare me because I'm always friendly to them. The Russian lady wears the same perfume as my stepmom. It smells nice but it's always a little bit disconcerting because it's a really distinct smell.

Also, I saw the nearly naked swimming guy. Yay! He's awesome! I love the nearly naked guy! He's very fit, well into his 60s at least, tan, balding, white hair, goatee, and he strips down to the teeniest tiniest G-string ever and takes a short swim in the ocean. How great is that?! Bold I tell ya!

Then there are the two city worker guys. They get on my nerves driving their stupid loud tractors all over the sand making all that obnoxious noise. I have no idea what they're even doing. I know they're doing something probably super necessary and important (yeah right) but it's annoying. They both have beards & back in the winter when I would see them working on the pier I wanted to ask them if they were having some sort of beard growing contest. One guy looked sort of cute and I thought his beard was sexy at first in a Jake Gyllenhaal kind of way but I got sick of it real quick & decided it was more in a Joaquin Phoenix kind of way & now I hate him. LOL?

And then there was Gael. Ah, Gael.... I didn't see him today. In fact, I only saw him for about a week or two a few months ago. He would run across the beach a few times on the softer, dry sand up away from the water so I never got a really good look at him but from my distance he looked perfect. He was dark haired, thin and tan with some tattoos, which I normally don't go for but on him, like I said, perfect. I wonder if he'll ever be back again. He was dreamy.

So that's it. My pictures show the June Gloom weather which it has been in the mornings but it clears up by the late afternoon and gets hot and summery and wonderful. I still feel nervous/anxious a lot for no reason & about half the time I have a nasty headache but I'm dealing with it all pretty well. Walking helps, I think because it helps me to live in the moment instead of being so stuck in my own head, and the sights and sounds of the beach help to unwind my mind. Except for those stupid tractors!

Fonzie's Got A Girlfriend :)

As I came up to Fonzie this morning I saw that he had made a friend. She was just laying there on top of him so I kind of propped her up so she would look more fancy. I think it made them both look happy.

Besides that, it's the last day of school so that means it was my last morning walk without having to drag along a grumpy 10 year old or get grandma to babysit. I was trying to feel sad or wistful about it but I just couldn't & didn't. It was a beautiful morning, as always, and walking on the beach just makes me feel so good. It makes me live in the moment and it really is the best therapy.

Lately most days I've filled both of my shorts pockets up with shells (I've been calling them "two pocket days") and today was no exception. It's a paradise of shells every morning. My new bigger shell bowl is overflowing and now I've also nearly filled up a big Tupperware container. I'm thinking I need to do some kind of art project with the shells, like making jewelry or mirror frames. I want to put them to good use in a way that I can enjoy looking at them daily.

Also, the Nordic god face on the wall by the pier? I've been calling him Pookie. Not a very godlike name, but that makes it kind of funny & I think the name will stick.

Another brick in the wall

Since I posted a pic of Fonzie the other day, I wanted to also post a pic of the wall on the other side of my beach walk. It looks like a face to me. Just like I high five the Fonz rock on the north side, when I get back to the pier on the south side, I always walk up to this exact spot on the wall but instead of a high five, I poke this guy in the eyes and mouth. I haven't given him a name yet. He reminds me of a Norse god.