Saturday, June 18, 2005


a bird on the post is worth....?


you got me babe


wave delight


knittin' n bitchin' --I mean sunnin'


long time love


summer fun


summer love


the front said 'sail fast...'


foggy beach day


Castles in the sand


safe above the waves


best swimsuit award


looking for dinner


going home


calling home

Thursday, June 09, 2005


old pier and retired coast guard station


in or out, hmmm.


Gulls hatching a plan to get the rest of the turkey/spinach wrap out of my backpack while the nearby humans were preoccupied


miles and miles of lowtide sand


drift wood that'd look great in the garden if I'd only brought the Bobcat to carry it to the truck!


the life


Yeah coach, I practiced today!


He wanted my lunch, he stubbornly waited and then lectured me - loudly - when I didn't share.


"I took the path less traveled...'


ne'ah the beach


taking time

Sun toasty, water temp 46!

Spent most of the day at my favorite beach: read, walked, had a picnic lunch. No ocean immersion for me, though - I only got in up to my ankles. This time of year only the kids are in very deep or very long.

Watching children is one of the great pleasures of time at the shore. The kids remind me of how it is to be totally focused on pleasure, the joys of the moment, playing withwhatever is at hand and how it is to be totally at home in an agile, energetic body whose function is never given a thought.
If your 4, and you want to hunker down with your knees bent and your butt hovering inches above the sand - it just happens. I can hunker down, it's the getting up that is usually the challenge!

As I returned from a walk to my blanket on the beach I noticed a couple walking along, probably in their very early 20's, heads close together in deep conversation. Each of them had a physical challenge. She'd apparently had a stroke, affecting her left side - her arm stayed at a 90 degree angle close to her side and didn't seem to have much function. Her left leg had a bit of heaviness and a slight action delay.

He ambulated with supporting assistance from a walking stick, both knees wrapped and one leg with virtually no flexibility. His slow walk was focused, determined and joyful.

They work together in a seemingly effortless manner, two people whose combined parts probably add up to 3/4s of the physical mobility that I have and many days take for granted. When she dropped something, he leaned over to pick it up with his free hand while she held the camera with her best hand. He helped hoist the loaded beach bag onto her shouder to be carried to the parking lot.

Watching them go, I hoped that the day's sand walking, beach gear toting efforts wouldn't leave them with aches and pains tomorrow - just slightly wind reddened cheeks, a restful night's sleep from the salty air and good memories of early summer '05.

As I was leaving, they returned and were headed up the beach for another walk. Good for them I thought. As we approached a common area, I noticed he wore a watch and I'd been wondering what time it was. I asked him, he replied and asked me if I knew what time the park closed. On the surface, it was a mundane, brief interaction. Yet the energy they carried about them and his sincere 'have a nice evening' salutation was for me the sparkle on top of the wave of a nearly perfect beach day.

Before I left the beach, I decided to walk a little bit past the path to the parking lot to inspect how the sands had shifted on another part of the beach. I dropped my gear by a log, and continued on with my camera in hand as I passed a couple college age guys pretending to be helicopters! They twirled very long pieces of drift wood around their heads as their feet spun their bodies in circles. Their friends watched and laughed. The wind carried their voices along behind me, and one of the young women started noodling on a wood flute. What joyous music - laughter, flute notes floating on the breeze and all accompanied by the crash and purr of the ocean.

Thank you all you beachgoers, for the decoration and enrichment you brough to my glorious afternoon!

Monday, June 06, 2005


'nuff said


notice the trash can on the right!?


just before the rain


a piece of Nancy's garden


spring sunset


the view out my 'office' window


church steeple in Porstmouth, NH


Wag the Dog


Harbor sunset

"Experts Warn of Intelligence Confusion"

Honest to god - that was a headline I just found on my Excite home page. What an oxymoron. Even funnier is that I just went back to check it's wire affiliation and it was gone! Not even listed in the sidebar inventory of recent stories. Hopefully someone realized the lunacy and pulled.

Lunacy seemed to be the theme of news, more so than usual. Two other stories were both about Supreme Court rulings: Title IX sports and medical marijuana. Something on the seperation of church and state would have rounded out the news day nicely.

Similarily, an article in last week's NYTs about a doctor that specializes in the physiological and psychological treatment of intrasex children - children born with ambiguous genital definition.

The predominant treatment for these children in the past was to surgically tweak the pieces parts one way or the other and raise the child according to the gender of what was most leftover. What part of the x and y chromosome genetics lecture did those fools miss? Why did they ever think that surgery and surroundings would top basic biology?!

Like my brother says "You can't fix stupid." My addendum to that is "I can handle crazy, but stupid pisses me off." And I spend a lot of energy these days trying not to be pissed off.