keepingintouch

Insomnia… so I’m posting the first of my promised photo updates.

Sometimes you don’t know the pictures you’re taking are special, and sometimes you do. That evening, I knew this was a special sunset. The even rosy color over the blue/lavender marine layer on the peaceful ocean were captivating, and I’m so glad I was able to make it a visual memory. This photo has not been digitally modified, it’s just as I saw it — although not quite as luminous as the original reflected sunlight was so powerful.

I’ve been away from KCL for a long time. Mostly for good reasons.

Thing2 and I are still enjoying her improved health, and we are trying to get out of the house most weekends.

I have a huge backlog of great photos from our day trips.

We’ve been having a heat wave. It was nearly 100 degrees here yesterday and today. We went to the beach yesterday — there were surfers and kids and the ocean doing its thing… It was magnificent.

Today we stayed home. I had some paperwork that had to get done. I didn’t finish until 2:30, and it was so hot that rather than drive all the way to the beach, we decided to go out to the pool here. There was just one other person there. Thing2 swam and then had an hour nap at the pool-side. I read a book for about an hour and then had a little swim. It was a great day.

Encyclopædia Britannica’s Guide to Women’s History
Among many other features, there is a timeline.

• Antiquity: 10,000 to 500
• Medieval times: 501 to 1500
• Early modern period: 1501 to 1800
• The spread of industrialization: 1801 to 1860
• Suffrage and social reform: 1861 to 1908
• Early 20th century: 1909 to 1929
• Economic and political upheaval: 1930 to 1945
• Postwar growth and social reform: 1946 to 1974
• Postindustrial advances: 1975 to present

This guy was sitting only 15-feet from the trail. We eyed each other for a few minutes, then he swooped down and captured a skink or lizard in the sand. He didn’t look too big or scary until he unfurled his wings and stretched-out his neck while catching his prey. Then he looked formidable.

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.