I love watching pelicans. Their wave-skimming flight, their tight formations with many birds veering as one, their precision dives – they always get their fish! Watching pelicans reminds me of Gary Larsen’s Far Side frame with the buzzards wearing shades and the caption “birds of prey know they’re cool”.
Every once in a while, I catch some pelicanness on camera.
Pelican at sunrise, East River, NYC.
Pelicans at sunrise, Carlsbad Beach, San Diego County, CA
They’re up there. Really.
Words to live by!
Sorry I cannot give credit for this quote – a friend heard somebody say it once at an AA meeting some years ago…
At last, some footage to demonstrate the potential in this methodology! (See this post for the other six steps.) Also, at last I have fulfilled my obligation as a citizen of the 21st century – I have posted a cat video to YouTube.
Writing can be a bicycle made of lead. It’s much easier to stop than to start.
I’ve got two quotes that help propel me forward again after I stall out.
One is by the scientist and activist Linus Pauling, who won two Nobel prizes (chemistry; peace):
The other is by musician, song-writer, and record producer Nick Lowe, who had this motto in the recording studio at Stiff Records:
Finally, this comment by jazz great Thelonious Monk to a newer musician gives me courage to try something different:
Wildfires can be so destructive and at one time I hated to look at a recently burned hillside. However, I have come to realize that a burned slope has a unique, stark beauty.
The Station fire was a large wildfire in the San Gabriel Mountains (near my southern CA home) in 2009.
The fire burned hot and fast and the slopes looked like this afterward.
But, a few months later, each of those moonscape skeletons already showed regrowth.
Within a couple years, the hills were back to looking like this.
Of course, part of my appreciation may come from knowing that around here, the hill likely holds native chaparral plants which are adapted to wildfire and usually bounce back, no matter how dead they initially seem.
Everywhere in Florida there are Beware of Alligators warning signs but after several trips to Florida with no ‘gator sightings, I was despondent. So the family took us to a long walkway inserted into the Everglades, and I saw this alligator – dive below the surface. See him? Right where those rings are.
Alligator evidence.
Note to other travelers: we visited the Everglades in late summer. Mosquito season. Not recommended. (With three applications of bug spray, wearing long sleeves and pants, we got away easy with only a few thousand bites. Each.)
(Posted as part of the Weekly Photo Challenge.)
True story from some friends…
Peaches was a rescue dog who liked being the only dog. A big, arthritic German Shepherd, she had the air of a retired police dog (though she wasn’t one). On walks, she avoided other dogs, and when house guests visited they had to leave their dogs at home.
One night on a walk, she suddenly dragged her people across a street toward another dog. They feared her attitude had worsened and that she was about to pick her first fight. Instead, she stopped next to a morose stray and sat down. Never had a dog looked as unhappy with freedom as this stray did.
The stray was short and funny-looking, with a barrel chest and a long pointy snout. The people named her Edna and – with Peaches’ clear permission – they brought Edna home. No one ever answered the Lost Dog signs they plastered around the neighborhood and so Edna joined the family. Peaches continued to tolerate her until Peaches succumbed to various old-dog ailments several months later.
Edna lived for many more years, delighting all who met her with her goofy, gregarious, and loving ways.
Edna looked like a cousin of Frankenweenie.
(Written for today’s Daily Prompt.)
You see the plume and … do you run toward it or away?
I’ve got a whole list of risks I might take if only I get the nerve or suffer the judgment lapse. In decreasing order of sanity, they are:
I note that 8, 9, 10 may alleviate some of the risk in 7.
(This post responds to today’s Daily Prompt which asks: what’s the biggest risk you’d like to take…and what would have to happen to get you to take it?)
Required Writing 