keepingintouch

Today we went over to the coast.


We walked and walked and walked … and part of it was up and down sand dunes.
When we got home, I lay down for about 30-minutes and when I got up I was surprised to find that I had already stiffened-up. I’m sure the work-out was good for me, but Thing2 and I were so glad to get back to the car.

However, we did see some male elephant seals doing their thing.

Click here to see video of the mock fights (no tripod, so once again I apologize for the unsteady hand.)

After the walk we were famished, so we went to a nearby grill and ordered a strawberry milkshake to share while we waited for our meals. What we didn’t know was that they use fresh strawberries in their milkshake. Wow! It was a fantastic milkshake — definitely the best one I’ve ever had.

It was also very filling and neither of us was able to eat much of our lunch.

We headed home along the coast. As we went around a bend in the road, suddenly we saw a sky full of large kites over the ocean. There were legions of kite surfers and windsurfers surfing in the bay. It was an incredible site. The video doesn’t do it justice. These guys and gals were tremendous. One of the kite skiers lifted himself and his board into the air as a wave passed by him. There is a kite skier in the lower left of the frame in the beginning of this video that gives you just a tiny taste of what they were doing with the waves.

Click here to see my video of kite surfing

Here is a movie of the pelicans sitting on the rocks. I had no tripod, and I was being blown around — so it’s not as steady as I would like.
Pelicans Preening
Click here to watch movie (Anyone know how to embed video?)

As I wrote before, there were wildflowers blooming

Yesterday we were supposed to have dinner with my brother and his significant other. However, in the early afternoon, his SO called and cancelled. I didn’t mind, because it’s been hot here and I had been thinking that it would be nice to get over to the beach for dinner. A little later Thing2 called me, I wanted to ask her about doing that, but I waited to let her tell me why she called. And when she asked if I wanted to go to the beach, I said, “You read my mind.” “Really!!”, she said, with true joy.

It has been a long, long time since we were this in-sync. It used to happen all the time. One of us would be thinking that it would be nice to do this or that, just as the other would suggest that we do just that.

As I parked the car at the beach, the first thing I saw was a pelican, flying very slowly just over the path on the cliff. When we got to the path, we could see that there were a lot of pelicans on the rocks. Soon we realized that there were seals in the water, chasing fish. As the seals chased the fish to the surface, the pelicans dove down to catch them. At times the seals looked like they were having so much fun. They would come to the surface, roll-over so you could see their flippers, and then dive back down. One even porpoised. When we were down at Monterrey last weekend we saw lots of pelicans. But they weren’t diving and fishing. It just killed me that we didn’t have the good camera last night. I keep saying I’ll never leave it at home again, but it keeps happening.

In lieu of pictures of them diving, here are pictures of them sitting around on rocks from last weekend’s trip.

Wild flowers are still in bloom…(picture to be updated later)

OneLook Reverse Dictionary

OneLook’s reverse dictionary lets you describe a concept and get back a list of words and phrases related to that concept. Your description can be a few words, a sentence, a question, or even just a single word.

This same site has my favorite on-line dictionary. It will search a bunch of on-line english dictionaries, or give you a dictionary search list of translations.

Update:Well - after a little more playing around with it, I have to agree with Fin’s conclusion, the reverse dictionary function is pretty lame. I still like the dictionary though!

We arrived at the Emergency room about 10AM this morning.

I arrived home at about 11:30pm this evening.

Thing2 is having what they *think* is a gallbladder attack. I always thought an ‘attack’ was something that came and went quickly. Like a heart attack, or an attack of conscience. Since this started last Friday and shows no signs of letting-up, I think it should be called something more like gallbladder siege.

They did an ultrasound that finished at 12pm, and then did nothing but give inadequate pain medication until about 4pm, when they said that they were going to discharge her. We both pitched a fit. We couldn’t believe that after another day in the hospital, they were not proposing any further testing or treatment. A lot more drama ensued, and at the end of the day the director of the ER got her admitted and got a commitment from a surgeon to evaluate her for surgery in the morning.

They keep saying there is nothing ‘acute’ going on. Which I guess means that Thing2’s life won’t be in danger if they send her home. However, it seems pretty acute to me when you are in too much pain to stand-up straight even after taking serious pain medication, and you keep throwing-up.

It was very windy by the bay today. It made for some surpisingly interesting birdwatching, and also led to some good belly laughs watching the creatures cope with the wind and go about their business.

The white pelicans were congregating very close to shore instead of far, far away in their usual spot.

Thing2 counted them. They were in groups of 13, 11 and 10. They were resting in a clump on one edge of a spit of sand. There were ducks scattered over the rest of the sand, and one Canada Goose, which looked down-right puny next to the pelicans.

Our first laugh came when a duck flew by. She was flapping like crazy, bombing along with her neck straight out the way they do… only she was flying sideways. The crosswinds were so strong that she was being blown sideways much faster than she was flying forward.

We had our next laugh when three more pelicans arrived at the sand spit. Instead of landing in the water, one chose to land on sand. As he came down, he stepped right on one of the sleeping ducks, She quickly scurried away and you could almost hear her exclaiming… “Hey there! Excuuse me!”.

Finally, we had the most amazingly close-up view of a hawk hunting. The hawk was using the strong winds to hold itself stationary over the shoreline, the way seagulls sometimes do. She was only 25 feet above our heads…by the way the shorebirds were hounding her, there were probably some nests there. As we were marveling at her ability to hold herself motionless, she reached forward with her left foot, tipped her head down and scratched behind her ear. All without moving more than a few inches.

Thing2 and I were kicking ourselves for not bringing our good camera, so I had to pilfer these pictures from the web.

The tests were inconclusive, so they sent us home.

The doctor says that if he had to bet, he thinks it was gallbladder, but there isn’t anything they can or should do right now except wait and watch.

It probably didn’t help that they probably needed her bed in the ER with the 4th of July accidental injuries starting to arrive.

8+ hours in the hospital emergency room is not how I would have picked to spend the day.

I am grateful that Thing2 didn’t need emergency surgery.

After everything that’s happened in the last year, I find that my ability to cope with days like today are greatly reduced. I had a mini-meltdown right at the end when the doctor said Thing2 could go, and then left the room. I was all ready to help her get dressed and get out of there. She insisted that she needed to ask them more questions. At that point I just had to leave the room and take a little walk. When I came back, she had spoken with the doctor and she was dressed and ready to go. So I guess it worked-out in the end.

I hope we don’t have to do this again, but Thing2 is still having abdominal/back pain, and I think there’s a good chance that she’ll wind-up back in the ER if the pain doesn’t resolve in the next few days.

Yesterday Thing2 woke-up with abdominal pain that spread to her back. It was steady through-out the day. We didn’t know what it was, we were just waiting and watching.

Last night my mother called, and she told us that it sounded like gallbladder.

This morning the pain is worse. So we’re going to the urgent care when it opens at 8:00.

Wow, this site has is great. I am so glad I moved here!

I still haven’t figured-out how to change my template. I’m dying to get back my three-column layout and share what I’m currently reading… etc.

All in good time. Tomorrow we’re planning an excursion, so I will have limited on-line time. Perhaps on Sunday there’ll be more time to play around with layouts.