Do Nothing Well

(originally written 7/4/10)


There really isn't a whole lot of interest that went on yesterday. We spent a majority of our time out front of our Cabana, reading or napping. I finished my Wallander novel, since I only have two more books with me I'll have to pace them out.


As usual, I am enjoying the wildlife. Besides the impressive iguanas, there are lots of little lizards with striped backs, many missing tails (perhaps due to the cat mentioned later in the post). The pelicans here look different than the ones I'm used to, sleeker. There are some other birds, but my only view of most of them is from below as they soar in the ever-present wind here. There is a little black bird with a long, broad tail that makes it look like a balsa-wood toy plane. It has a pretty song. Every now and then I catch a flash of bright yellow. Oriels maybe.


This morning I watched what looked like a wasp dig a hole in the ground big enough to disappear into. It flung sand an impressive distance. Then, buried the hole up.

I need guide-books for these things.

Yesterday afternoon we trekked out of Copal and down the road toward a mini-mart. There are a lot of other hotels down that way, but not many people. We're not in high season. Most of the restaurants were empty. We picked up some chips and fanta and went back to our reading. The doritos here taste different, like they were made for people who like strong flavor. I like them.


For dinner we went to Copal's restaurant. There we met up with a kitty that we had also seen during breakfast. He or she is a tiny thing, with a long skinny tail like a rat. But despite being quite slender, he looks healthy. Probably because he goes from table to table suckering people like me and Tech Support into tossing him chicken and shrimp. He knows how to work it too. he ignored our table until we were served, then came and sat next to us until we were done, at which point he promptly disappeared.


Thunder storms rolled in late in the afternoon. It poured on and off all through dinner. The cooler (but not by any means cool) air was welcome. it stopped long enough that I got to see my first ever fire-flies in person as we walked back to our Cabana from dinner.

Tech Support let me have the window side of the bed because I was so hot. Air blowing in from the windows helped me get to sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night, pelted by rain coming through the screen, then went back to sleep.

2010 So Far...

Poseidon Worship

June gloom has been aggressively persistent this year. I didn't even realize it was summer until the sun came out about a week ago. We were all set to go to the beach on Sunday with Meggish and her husband, but Meggish's schoolwork got in the way. The morning was cold and overcast, but I still demanded we go down to the beach and say hello to the summer ocean.

Intimidated by the cloudy sky, we didn't get into our bathing suits -- a mistake. Once I touched the water I wanted to get my whole body into the waves. But, there are still several months of summer. We settled for getting significantly splashed.




I haven't been food blogging lately because I've been making a lot of dishes that I've already blogged about. I'm quite proud of my repertoire, but at a certain point it comes off more like taunting and less like a journal. Ala: I made Chicken Tikka Masala again last night, and it was even better this time. You shoulda been here.

Sunday night though, I pulled out Let's Cook Japanese Food! and tried a new one. Spicy ground beef curry with vegetables. Tech Support was in charge of vegetable prep and I think he did a delightful job.


I love colorful food. I think that presentation is definitely a part of an enjoyable meal, though sometimes I'm too lazy to bother. Of course, after cooking these vegetables for a bit and adding the bright yellow curry, they had lost some of their shine.


Perhaps not the most beautiful presentation, and my shots are still coming out blurry, but it was pretty tasty.

Happy New Years

Like others we went down to the shore to greet the new year.



Our friends were waiting there for us.



A year ago my interest in birds was minimal. They had beaks and feathers and made noises and that was all very well but nothing to get excited over. Lately though, perhaps in part thanks to my father and aunt, I find them a lot more interesting.

Who wouldn't be impressed by this beak?

It's Hot, And Things are On Fire

The cat is overcome.



And the sky is melting into the ocean.

A Daytime Doll at Night

While the fourth of July saw my coastal area sitting comfortably in a cloud, the day before was beautiful. I'd finally managed to get some good writing done, as well as housework, and hungrily waited for the boy. I was pondering deserting for the nearby Mexican place when he called.

"It's beautiful. Do you want to go out and eat?"

"Sure, where?"

He named a cute little Caribbean place about one block up from the beach which I approved. He took a while getting home and we took a while finding parking and they took a while getting us the food. I'd had the idea of getting our food to-go and then eating on the beach, but with all the taking a while by the time we got out the sun was gone.

Not that that was a problem.



Pictures can't do the experience justice. The air was filled with the smell of salt and fish and sea and the sound of waves and water. We sat in the sand and talked about things both deep and trivial.

Afterwards we wandered over to the pier. I made noises at the boy and he got tickets for us to go on the ferris wheel. A girl, probably on summer break from the high school I went to, giggled with a night-time work-high as she explained the rules.

The best part is where you get stuck at the top while they unload the other riders. The perfect place to kiss.



Afterwards we walked to the end of the pier. By now it was very dark and the sea was impenetrable. Still, I imagined Japan on the other side while the boy told me about this Dr. Who episode he'd seen.



We walked back, leaving the pier and then the beach for the cat-filled comfort of our apartment. I look forward to many more warm evening nights.

I kind of saw a dead body this morning...

The helicopters were the first clue.

We went biking on the path this morning and there was the usual unusual.

A bronzed couple with platinum hair and awkward gait that made us both think of Star Trek: The Next Generation passed us.

There was the muscular Rasta man on his roller blades and the other muscular, shirtless, non-Rasta as well.

Two film shoots were going on, a hotel was draped in funeral black and down the road quite a ways was a half a dozen trailers.

A man wearing only his bathing suit jumped from rock to rock by the ocean in his bare feet.

And then there were the helicopters. A lot of them. Right above us. A moment later Tech Support noticed the police cars in the distance, and I noticed that PCH was empty. Totally empty. PCH is never totally empty.



As we got closer to the police cars we saw they were all regarding a pile of something on the ground and taking measurements around it. A nondescript sedan drove up.

"The detective just arrived." Tech Support commented. I looked over, hoping to see Brenda Johnson, Lenny Brisco or even Goren. But there was just a bunch of men.

We road on, because we didn't want to be gawkers, but we were slower than usual.

"Did you see anything?" I asked.

"Looked like a pile of clothing." Tech Support said.

"They don't close down PCH for a pile of clothes."

At the end of the path we watched the police divert traffic from PCH onto Temescal. The cars were backed up as far as I could see, all along point Dume. I was too distracted to sit and stretch. I'm weak and prone to morbid curiosity, I wanted to bike by and see the scene again. I wanted to be a bystander in an episode of the crime shows I watch far too much.

So we rode by again, heading back to the car.

"I think I saw a shin." Tech Support said.

"Was it a man or a woman?" I asked.

"It was a sexless shin."

At the distance we went by, keeping up the pretense that we weren't atrocity tourists and not stopping, we couldn't make out much. Tech Support thought it looked like a pile of clothes with a body in it. Maybe someone had been murdered and dumped on PCH. Maybe a kidnapping had gone wrong. There had to be a twist of some kind.

Past the accident everything was back to normal. No one knew what was just a mile up the road.

A British man walked on the path speaking into his phone. "Sheila has to be notified."

A couple hugged, and when they parted I could see the girl had been crying. She wiped at her eyes.

A midget homeless man walked along the edge of the sand.

We passed the Star Trek alien people again.

Back at the car and I called a family friend who is known for being awake and watching TV early in the morning.

"PCH? I can tell you about that," she said.

She told me it was a pedestrian vs. car situation. As usual, the pedestrian lost. A hit and run around 6am, two hours before we even pulled into the parking lot. The victim was a young transient who may have been hit multiple times. PCH was closed for a bit and all the other freeways in the area were congested as a result.

So no murder or kidnapping. Not even a twist.

Living on the Edge

I spent one summer at the beach. Everyday my father would herd me and my younger brother the five blocks down to the ocean where we'd pass most of the afternoon. The days were sweet and blissful and absent of sunscreen and I'm not sure how I got away without ever getting sunburned.

The summer ended, and I went back to school, and at some point I became a young curmudgeon who decided that she didn't like the beach or the sand or the sun. That was around the era that "Your Favorite Band Sucks" started really getting to me and it was far easier to dislike everything than like anything.

But that's okay, because when I changed my mind the beach was still there.



I can imagine living in a different state (maybe) or a different city (perhaps) but I don't think I could ever get too far away from the coast. I'd miss the salt in the air and the sound of the waves in the morning when the streets are quiet.

This morning a Renewed (but still Recovering) Tech Support took me to a Caribbean restaurant not too far from the ocean. Afterwards we walked down and across the sand and stuck our fingers in the water.



When I got back into the car I had sand in my shoes. I had to get to the job. The job is about twenty minutes inland, so far away that even in the quiet mornings you can't smell salt and hear waves. And there are good things about this place, but rather than taking my sneakers off and shaking them out, I let a little bit of beach come with me.