oh, the grunion

they did not, did not, did not run.
and we were sad.

it's not like i went snipe hunting. grunion are real, the state of california says so. but they did not, did not, did not run.
and we were sad.

i'm going to stop short of defending myself- i went into this with a carefree exuberance. okay, or at the very least, a wait-and-see attitude.

the evening started with a late-late dinner. i don't normally find it acceptable to eat at 9pm but in this case it served me well- given the journey. after my dinner of bbq chicken and a discussion of why one doesn't keep life-sized dummies in the house, let alone larger than life "killer" clowns...especially where the guests sleep- i went in to watch "the prince of egypt" with my new BF, the percocious 10 year old Becca.

i was initially remorseful over not remembering why the 'pharaoh' wanted to kill all the male babies and no Bible was at hand so i was left shrugging my shoulders and saying, i can't believe i don't remember, as if when asked today I remembered who Gideon was, besides that guy who puts those Bibles in the hotel rooms- I really couldn't say. There was guilt or at least sadness that I was a human with a faulty -less than flawless- processor. Nevertheless someone said, I'm going to have to refresh my memory- and I said, what? read exodus?

not so bad actually.

i watched the movie pondering the "disney inspired vs. god inspired" arguments in my high school bible classes, and i laughed when charlton heston appeared to me. i tried to explain it to the group but they didn't get it. it's funny if you think about it. really. it is. so after a fruitless half-hearted internet search about whether the 'pharaoh' was Ramses II or Thutmose II i gave up and finished watching the movie even as my new BF gave up on the movie and was playing darts. I muttered to my other friend that this was awfully dark subject matter for a disney movie, just as God was killing all the first born in Egypt...

kill-joy.

so around 11 i stole some of my friend's C batteries, got the mag-lite out and hopped in the car with high hopes of the grunion. okay, or at the very least an expectation of adventure.

but they did not, did not, did not run.
oh, the grunion.
and we were sad.

((we went up to point dume, which was in an Angel episode. all i could think of, when i saw the cliff, was how Angel was going to confess his love for Cordelia but she ended up getting abducted by 'the powers that be' (hack writers) and then his own son Connor pushed him off the cliff and tazered him, only to put him in a tomb and drop him to the bottom of ocean.))

tragic, and hastily resolved? yes.

so, after taking my new BF to the bathroom in a restaurant reserved for a private party (luckily they were all drunk and the party was wrapping up), we camped out on the sand. Unfortunately the restuarant had these killer spot lights on the sand and everything was lit up, for a while anyway.

(moment of silence for all the light pollution around the world that won't let you see grunion and the damn stars.)

despite that i identified at least 3 constellations, 2 shooting stars, 4 birds that looked like fast moving flying saucers and 1 airplane. grunion, 0.

not only that, but since there was lack of grunion we had to keep my new BF occupied- you see, that's why child labor works. they're industrious and if you don't fuel their imaginative energy with repetitive tasks they do nothing but pester you and demand you play with them. so we sent her off to gather drift-bamboo and seaweed, good enough for decorations and rope ties. i made a village replete with a piece of wood shaped like a horse and 4 main structures. my next task was to bouy up the infrastructure but it was getting cold and we decided to pack up camp and take a walk down the beach.

time: 2:30am.

the kid was getting restless so we sent her into the ocean which wasn't "that" cold to collect sand crabs. she only got hit by a wave once...

and the sand crabs were HUGE. back in my day they weren't that huge... these were HUGE. and there were lots of them bubbling up in the sand.
http://tsrtp.ucdavis.edu/newsletters/summer_98/homepage.html#Sand%20Crabs

to sum up: we exfoliated our barefeet back to the car and a pixie stix later and an hour past and i was passed out on my friend's couch (not in the killer clown room.)

time: 4:00am

despite the grunion i'm really glad for nights like these, because i need them. there was a certain transendance of youth, easily captured, bcs you felt you had all the time in the world. only 10 years later, and you feel utterly divorced from it. but moonlight. or especially warm-whipped nights trigger the need for flight, for endless talking, for endless walking- for endless-ness. you imagine yourself crawling out of the window with a flashlight, wearing your favorite sweatshirt and breathing in the night. you contemplate all the secret places. you are, after all, searching for something.

the crash of the waves and the abyss of the horizon overtake you as you fall back on your blanket and watch the moon rise. then later when you're on your stomach with a count of shooting stars in your pocket and the tide is rising, the 'fog' rolls in and starts obscuring everything. you find yourself not talking, just watching and listening and feeling yourself a part of the majestic. a part of something infinite. and it is beautiful. and it is grand. and there is no.where.you would rather be. than there. right then. no matter what the time or obligations of the morrow.

They did not, did not, did not run.
Oh, the grunion.
And you find yourself smiling.
Anyway.