Great White Sharks and the Gulf of the Farallones

Dear Paul and Cathy,

Hey, hey! I'm taking a few minutes to myself right now, to avoid writing a test. Well, not avoid, but definitely postpone. I need to appreciably change it up, as I have two students who are repeating my class this semester. no unfair advantages allowed!

I've been collecting items from the newspaper, as you can see. I just can't help it! I'll read an article or do a Jumble or laugh at a comic and someone near and dear will pop into my thoughts! That's when I tear the item out of the paper, then recycle the rest.

I was going to cancel my paper subscription, but I've realized that I like that it brings thoughts of family and friends to me. So, I've continued it for another 12 weeks. $3 a week for my happiness = good for me!

The Gray's Reef Ocean Film festival was two weeks ago. I served as usher for the entire two-day event! Loved it! I've been attending since fall of 2007 and look forward to it each year. This card is from a package of notecards which feature the 14 National Marine Sanctuaries on this blue planet.

I selected this one especially for y'all. Woohoo!

with my love!

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Before heading to Las Vegas in 2010, we drove from San Francisco to Yosemite National Park.
Paul wanted to share this area, in particular, with me and Cathy. He has very much enjoyed hiking these mountains.
This place is more incredible in person than this photo can possibly show.

Breads of the world, unite!!!
Stud muffin!
Smart cookie!
Sweetie pie!
All baked for the breadwinner!
This reminded me not only of the fun we had with a Sunday crossword puzzle,
but also of the baking show we discovered on tv on night.
Good times!

This, of course, brought to mind our evening with Philo Cafe, while they were visiting me this past December.
Good discussion about the meaning of time and money to all there!
Definitely a good time!

(As for the special meaning behind the selection of this notecard for my dear friends in San Francisco, check out the website for Gulf of the Farallones NMS.)

walking on a Sunday afternoon

Ya gotta sing it.
Think, Queen's "Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon", one of my favorites on the album, "A Night at the Opera". Yes, I am well aware that "Bohemian Rhapsody" is regarded as THE hit from that one. However, given my penchant for listening to an entire side of an album, not just a single song, I can assure you that all of the songs deserve more recognition.
Ahem. I digress, ramble, stray off topic, yet again.
As I am wont to do.
So there.
Um... let me see... what was I saying?
Oh! I see! I hadn't really started yet.
Good!
Today had started out overcast and a bit gray, as the weatherman had predicted. My niece Emily and her family came by around 10:30 AM, to visit. As we had not seen each other at Christmas, I gave her and her music-making husband two tickets for Afterlife Tours (garnered in a fundraiser for Savannah Stage Company). They immediately said "Date night event!" Major coolness!

Then I gave their darling daughter, my ocean-loving great-niece, her gift. Yeah! I had made (i.e., stuffed it myself) a turtle to cuddle, making sure it was extra cuddly, like her. I had left the blue-themed Hawaiian shirt and shorts off, to allow her the option of dressing him or not. (She started putting the clothes on him as soon as she saw them.) Then she named him: Scutzles, I think was the final name, though it may have morphed into Scuttles. Very nice!
They stayed and visited for a while, then life called and they had to leave. But not without first making plans to share dinner some Tuesday or Thursday in the near future. I will certainly look forward to that!

As they left, I noticed the day had brightened.
Not just figuratively.
No, literally.
The sun had muscled its way past the clouds, clearing a space for blue sky to arch above.
Well, then.
This was entirely too pretty a day to spend inside!
And it was reasonably warm, too!
This called for a trip to the real beach!
And so that is exactly what happened. I contacted my NK! Barbara, who had recently spoken of wanting to walk on the beach. No better time than the present! She was at my house within the hour and we were at Tybee Island's Atlantic Ocean sands shortly after. Yeah!

We were not the only ones on those sands, either, basking in the glow of this glorious day in late December. Oh, no! Lots of folks were there, strolling along the water's edge, testing out new metal detectors, splashing in the surf, catching waves. Nice!
We stayed for two hours, until the time on the meter was up, then we dined at the The Flying Fish Bar & Grill on the way back to town. She had never been and I love the food there. Now, she knows another good place for shrimp! I highly recommend the appetizer sampler: fried shrimp, fried calamari, fried conch, and delicious shrimp salad - and five different sauces for dipping! Definitely a fun food!
What a thoroughly relaxing day!

909

Home.
This is the view that greeted me as I set down my travel bag.
The sun was on its way down on the other side of the building.
The ocean was lit only by the waning light of the eastern sky.

Home.
This is not my first stay in this room at hall's end.
I was here last year, too.
Thank you, dear John, for remembering how I like this suite.

Home.

sea creatures from the garden

These are two gremlin gourds from another place in north Georgia.
Although these vegetables grew in mountain country, their yearning for life in the sea is obvious.
That's why I brought them back to marsh country with me.
Time is not on their side, in reality.
Time works quite nicely for them in the virtual world of the ethernet.

blue, blue, my world is blue

Old songs sometimes spring to mind, songs from a childhood so very long ago, far from the present time of responsibility and deadlines and finances.
This photograph was taken on the tail edge of a summer storm, on the tail edge of a summer day.
No special effects were used, no tricks to enhance colors.
Just the natural fade of the light, facing eastward as the day slipped quietly into twilight.
i thank You, God.

see, i do listen to you

A dancing crab! That's just one of the many gifts the bfe showered upon me tonight during dinner at one of our favorite spots. He said, "The wind-up waving crab makes me smile. You need an entity to put your hopes and dreams into - let Col. Crab help you out!"
The little crab was not the first gift brought out of the blue, though. (Bag, that is. You'll get it soon.) There was a theme linking the presents and I needed to figure it out, he said as he began pulling out presents. First, for my creative side, came a kit to build my very own crazy foam frog. But, as he said, the frog "needs a friend" so he also gave me a foam kit for a lovely crab with pipe cleaner legs and googly eyes. Very sweet! After all, don't we all need friends to share life's adventures?
Next, a package of shark tattoos, for my "bad-ass" side. Yo! Or maybe that should be yo-ho-ho? Hahaha!

After the scary sharks came the silly dancing crab. Then, something he had bought for the ensemble, but was unfamiliar with. The sailboat consisted of two metal die-cuts with a magnet in the middle. Termed a "screen saver", the purpose is to keep birds from crashing into plate glass windows and doors. Still, it tied in with the theme, even if he termed it "??!?".
Knowing my fondness for animated films for kids, he had searched out "Saving Nemo," not realizing he had the name wrong. When he (understandably) couldn't find it, he bought the next film with a title he knew I would like: "The Reef". Wonder of wonders, I haven't seen this one before! Yea! He added a trio of plastic sea creatures to play with before, during, or after the movie. Nice!

When he saw this metal fish, he said it spoke to him and was "the inspiration for all this." He knew glass would not do, as I am a klutz and break fragile objects. He is also very familiar with my collection of colorful wooden fish, some rather whimsical, others more true to nature. So, he had seen this unbreakable piece of ocean-inspired art and thought of me.
See, he does listen to me. What a very nice way to show it, too!
Maybe I can help him with his biology lessons so he doesn't mistake frogs for aquatic life. (smile)

Later, he even treated me to the improv comedy show at Muse Arts Warehouse and we enjoyed the show together, writing lines on dialogue slips, yelling out words to be worked into story lines, cheering and applauding! Fun, fun, fun!!!

from a child's mind: oceanography

These were sent to me by my former sister-in-law's mother and I thought I would share. Honestly, if I were the teacher, they would have to get partial credit for at least making me smile!


Children Writing About the Ocean. The next time you take an oceanography course, you will be totally prepared.

1) - This is a picture of an octopus. It has eight testicles. (Kelly, age 6)

2) - Oysters' balls are called pearls. (Jerry, age 6)

3) - If you are surrounded by ocean, you are an island. If you don't have ocean all round you, you are incontinent. (Mike, age 7)

4) - Sharks are ugly and mean, and have big teeth, just like Emily Richardson. She's not my friend any more. (Kylie, age 6)

5) - A dolphin breaths through an asshole on the top of its head. (Billy, age 8)

6) - My uncle goes out in his boat with 2 other men and a woman and pots and comes back with crabs. (Millie, age 6)

7) - When ships had sails, they used to use the trade winds to cross the ocean. Sometimes when the wind didn't blow the sailors would whistle to make the wind come. My brother said they would have been better off eating beans. (William, age 7)

8) - Mermaids live in the ocean. I like mermaids. They are beautiful and I like their shiny tails, but how on earth do mermaids get pregnant? Like, really? (Helen, age 6)

9) - I'm not going to write about the ocean. My baby brother is always crying, my Dad keeps yelling at my Mom, and my big sister has just got pregnant, so I can't think what to write. (Amy, age 6)

10) - Some fish are dangerous. Jellyfish can sting. Electric eels can give you a shock. They have to live in caves under the sea where I think they have to plug themselves in to chargers. (Christopher, age 7)

11) - When you go swimming in the ocean, it is very cold, and it makes my willy small. (Kevin, age 6)

12) - Divers have to be safe when they go under the water. Divers can't go down alone, so they have to go down on each other. (Becky, age 8)

13) - On vacation my Mom went water skiing. She fell off when she was going very fast. She says she won't do it again because water fired right up her big fat ass. (Julie, age 7)

14) - The ocean is made up of water and fish. Why the fish don't drown I don't know. (Bobby, age 6)

15) - My dad was a sailor on the ocean. He knows all about the ocean. What he doesn't know is why he quit being a sailor and married my mom. (James, age 7)

ol' blue eyes

There's a book out there in which Frank Sinatra has a quote about friendship. I know of this book because the wave purchased it during the 2012 Midwestern-Canada Adventure and briefly showed it to me as he placed his sack of books in the trunk. He said the quote made him think of me and him and our friendship. Nice, right?
You betcha.
So, he sends me the quote, by text message, natch.
Ol' Blue Eyes was lobbed a query about how to know if someone was a friend for life. His response? "You bypass the acquaintance stage immediately. Either your currents are different and the chemistry isn't there or else you're hooked and you're a friend immediately - and, in most cases, permanently."
Wow. Currents? Chemistry? Hooked?
How incredible that someone out there, someone who was a quotable celebrity, would utter those particular words, words which hold some special sway for a chick like me.
How very incredible that when my dear friend read those words, I was brought to mind.
I am... fortunate? blessed? overwhelmed?
Yes.
And relieved to know that piece of my heart is safe.

i just can't wear dresses any more

I used to very much enjoy wearing dresses and looking like a girl. I don't believe I can handle it these days.

Oh, my, YOU again? First it was the fingernails, now this oh-so-not problem!

Understood. Folks who are not privy to the workings of my mind may well scoff when I state my newly-minted problem. Said problem is specifically this: When I wear a dress, I see myself as very "girlie" and I tend to act accordingly. I become overly flirty and somehow believe myself to be irresistible to the opposite sex.

Oh? You find men drawn to you in droves when you are dressed as a woman?

No, at least I hope not. If I were to have men "in droves" putting the moves on me, I just might have to gain weight to recover my defensive wall against such action. Once upon a time, I would have been just fine with heavy flirting with strangers, but those days are separated from these by sixteen years with one man. I am very much out of practice with flirtation and I'm convinced lately that I'm doing it wrong. Or, rather, I'm flirting with serious aim and that isn't the spirit of flirting.
Besides which, I wasn't speaking of me dressing like a woman. Women ARE allowed to wear pants and suits and pretty well whatever. No, that was not my point at all. My problem arises from my image of myself when I wear a dress, and only of late do I have this image in the forefront of my mind. It's starting to make me feel a bit out of control.

Maybe you just need to avoid mirrors. Perhaps if you didn't know how you looked, you might behave differently.

I don't know if that would work. Besides, the problem isn't particularly every time I wear a dress, but just sometimes. When I wore a dress to class during the last week of school, I didn't see myself as "girlie" in front of the students. However, I did find myself getting girlie and shy at times when there...

Ah, now we're getting somewhere! Why ever must you talk in circles instead of straight out? Never mind, give discourse further of thy plight!

I have found myself drawn to a new ocean, an ocean I had not noticed before, as its waves were below the surface, not cresting, much like a lake, still and unruffled. Some few months back, the surface broke and I have not been quite the same since. It may have been early November, maybe shortly after, that I first felt... a kinship stirring the air. I had been strolling in the arboretum, as was my wont, taking a break from the chill of my office on a fine afternoon, a little indulgence in the depths of the natural world prior to my evening class. As a rule, I wander along the inner paths, alone, rarely seeing anyone else. But not this afternoon. He was also strolling, taking a break from I know not what, and we happened to talk. Not simply exchanging pleasantries with each other; we talked. And, as I recall, we talked long enough that I had to break away to make my appointment with twenty-nine students. I chalked that up to a nice encounter, but didn't allow myself to dwell on it too much. Well, not too much, but I did send him an email about the roses on campus and the way they smelled in the sun, and he did reply.

And then?

And then pretty well nothing until February. I must admit that he was on my mind at times, but as a person of interest in the department, a person I didn't really know much about, but he was vocal during meetings and had well-thought-out statements and questions. Even so, we might smile at each other, but we didn't pursue anthing more until after the second quiz bowl at the school. We had both volunteered to work with the kids that Saturday, just as we had both been volunteers on the last Saturday of the previous month. This time, I had made sure I could stay for the entire session, rather than leaving at lunch as I had in January. We somehow ended up together for the final round, with me reading questions and him standing beside me as the judge. He hadn't started out standing beside me, but he was by the end of the session. I thought it was pretty nice that Kat was there taking pictures of us, especially when she and another woman remarked on how good I looked in the fuchsia tones I was wearing that day. (They had previously seen me in blue when I dedicated the two seats in the Jenkins Theatre.) I don't know if that remark was overheard, but perhaps it was.

Wait a minute... So you're saying you and he weren't really hanging out yet, conversing in the halls or such?

No, no, that didn't begin until just after, starting slowly and building over the next few mnnths. I had "friended" him on a social website and he had accepted. Made daring by knowledge gleaned from a comment he had made to another, about the women here not giving him a chance or something like that, I invited him to an event with the kidless group that I've belonged to for the past five years. My intent was honorable: introduce him to some of the lovely and smart women I knew, broaden his horizons, so to speak. I knew he was younger than me, though I did not yet know his age, and harbored no thoughts that he might have an interest in me, but I thought he might well like a couple of the others in the group.
And he did attend that gathering in March, dining at a downtown locale with a long-standing reputation for burgers and beer. And he did enjoy himself and had good conversation with all. And shortly after, he did start coming around my office for more conversation with me - and I loved the attention from him. I still very much love the attention from him.
And that is the source of my concern now. We have great conversations, talks which diverge from topic to topic, sometimes never returning to finish a tale begun because another has branched and consumed the path. We have conversations which continue for hours, closing down theatres, bars, and restaurants. Incredible explorations of each other's past and present are undertaken, learning likes and dislikes, myths and theories, loves and loves lost.
And I find myself unwilling to part from his company. And I find myself stealing touches. And I find myself wearing dresses and being girlie and flirting seriously.
And I need to stop that behavior, because I don't want him to leave. I need to stop that behavior because I want the conversations to continue, I want to learn if he is a new best friend or ... But slower is such a difficult pace for me, as I more often run full tilt boogie or not at all... but I will try. I will, for this new friendship is very important to me.
I just can't wear dresses any more.